I'm mulling over what could drive me into a deeper darker place than losing one of my nearest and dearest for the rest of my earthly life. Nothing. It was a super short mull.
It's been challenging, trying to cling to sanity, to hold on to the love most people give and to not analyze why some people say what they do, or analyze why others say nothing at all. The bottom line is, people are just people and everything people do and say to me is merely a reflection of my own imperfections. It's not as if they could fix anything anyway. We can't fix grief. It's just a process. A horrible, torturous process that nobody can take away. The real pain comes when a man who had a fatherless childhood gives me a gentle hug and offers me total compassion and a steady stream of prayers. I feel guilty that I had the most wonderful father imaginable and I'm leeching compassion from someone who has so much less than me. I said from the day Dad was diagnosed that I wanted to beg God for a supernatural healing but I felt like I was asking to win the lottery twice. I felt guilty. Then I looked at his pain and felt robbed and gyped by God. Then I stepped back and looked at my Dad's series of choices and felt angry at him for ignoring or hiding this disease until we couldn't help him. Then I walked back through all of the arguments about his health over the years and feel like I should have tried harder. Never should have left Arkansas. Should have gone back to Arkansas. The conflicting emotions are suffocating. What is my expectation of God, my dad, me? I think about all of the times God saved Dad from certain death by a simple turn of his hand. I remember all of the things my dad made the right choices about in his life with or without my encouragement. I cling to all of my memories of time I did give to Dad. It's not like none of us were ever doing anything good, right or worthwhile. Then I picture Dad walking up to Heaven and seeing all of these people hanging through the gate excited to see him. Aunt Bonnie, Granny, Poppy, Gilbert (sans an interpreter), Tom, Angie, George Scott, Coralee, Thurl, Aunt Eileen... oh the list goes on. Who am I to say we lost? We fought hard with every tool we could find, so hard that I got on Dad's last nerve. He was sorry for our grief but there wasn't any dread, his pain was consuming and he knew where it would end. He gave me a kiss on Christmas Eve and told Mom he loved her too. It wasn't a smooth peaceful lift off to heaven though. We loved him more than anything but no matter how we tried or what we did his will to live was gone in a sea of pain. And at the end, we held him and wiped a gallon of sweat off of his cold brow, his cheeks, his arms, his hands. We silently willed breath into his body as it raggedly breathed on. We begged God to turn the clock back or perform a miracle or make pain meds work. I sang to him songs all but our most special song. I tried but I couldn't. I don't know why we have to do this. Miss him for 20 years he should have been alive. Second guess everything that led to this. Replay his voice in our minds so we don't forget it. Picture his perfect hands in fine detail to imprint them on us. Try to help my mom scramble to pay tens of thousands of dollars for hospital bills and a funeral. Now I know we should have been fundraising for her but we were in a vortex of hell on earth. It sucks. Really sucks. I hate how I burst into tears with every kind gesture shown. I hate having to carry kleenexes to Costco. I hate speaking to an empty room and asking him what to do about my latest spat with Jody. It's not that my heart is broken, it's that there's a giant hole in it. It's a hole nobody can fill. Not my husband, my children, my friends, my mom, my siblings or anyone else. When you've chatted on the phone with your dad several times per week your whole adult life, and never pondered what to do when that ends, you are left in a never ending cascade of tears. I'm waiting on that "new normal" but I honestly think it's a joke for me. I hate to be the annoying person who says I'm unique and my dad is special and our relationship is different but it is. It has to be. I've listened to practically everyone I know tell me what terrible, fake or nonexistent relationships they have with one or both of their parents and I am here to say, I'm just loved, adored and even guilt tripped for growing up and leaving home. That's all I have.
It's been challenging, trying to cling to sanity, to hold on to the love most people give and to not analyze why some people say what they do, or analyze why others say nothing at all. The bottom line is, people are just people and everything people do and say to me is merely a reflection of my own imperfections. It's not as if they could fix anything anyway. We can't fix grief. It's just a process. A horrible, torturous process that nobody can take away. The real pain comes when a man who had a fatherless childhood gives me a gentle hug and offers me total compassion and a steady stream of prayers. I feel guilty that I had the most wonderful father imaginable and I'm leeching compassion from someone who has so much less than me. I said from the day Dad was diagnosed that I wanted to beg God for a supernatural healing but I felt like I was asking to win the lottery twice. I felt guilty. Then I looked at his pain and felt robbed and gyped by God. Then I stepped back and looked at my Dad's series of choices and felt angry at him for ignoring or hiding this disease until we couldn't help him. Then I walked back through all of the arguments about his health over the years and feel like I should have tried harder. Never should have left Arkansas. Should have gone back to Arkansas. The conflicting emotions are suffocating. What is my expectation of God, my dad, me? I think about all of the times God saved Dad from certain death by a simple turn of his hand. I remember all of the things my dad made the right choices about in his life with or without my encouragement. I cling to all of my memories of time I did give to Dad. It's not like none of us were ever doing anything good, right or worthwhile. Then I picture Dad walking up to Heaven and seeing all of these people hanging through the gate excited to see him. Aunt Bonnie, Granny, Poppy, Gilbert (sans an interpreter), Tom, Angie, George Scott, Coralee, Thurl, Aunt Eileen... oh the list goes on. Who am I to say we lost? We fought hard with every tool we could find, so hard that I got on Dad's last nerve. He was sorry for our grief but there wasn't any dread, his pain was consuming and he knew where it would end. He gave me a kiss on Christmas Eve and told Mom he loved her too. It wasn't a smooth peaceful lift off to heaven though. We loved him more than anything but no matter how we tried or what we did his will to live was gone in a sea of pain. And at the end, we held him and wiped a gallon of sweat off of his cold brow, his cheeks, his arms, his hands. We silently willed breath into his body as it raggedly breathed on. We begged God to turn the clock back or perform a miracle or make pain meds work. I sang to him songs all but our most special song. I tried but I couldn't. I don't know why we have to do this. Miss him for 20 years he should have been alive. Second guess everything that led to this. Replay his voice in our minds so we don't forget it. Picture his perfect hands in fine detail to imprint them on us. Try to help my mom scramble to pay tens of thousands of dollars for hospital bills and a funeral. Now I know we should have been fundraising for her but we were in a vortex of hell on earth. It sucks. Really sucks. I hate how I burst into tears with every kind gesture shown. I hate having to carry kleenexes to Costco. I hate speaking to an empty room and asking him what to do about my latest spat with Jody. It's not that my heart is broken, it's that there's a giant hole in it. It's a hole nobody can fill. Not my husband, my children, my friends, my mom, my siblings or anyone else. When you've chatted on the phone with your dad several times per week your whole adult life, and never pondered what to do when that ends, you are left in a never ending cascade of tears. I'm waiting on that "new normal" but I honestly think it's a joke for me. I hate to be the annoying person who says I'm unique and my dad is special and our relationship is different but it is. It has to be. I've listened to practically everyone I know tell me what terrible, fake or nonexistent relationships they have with one or both of their parents and I am here to say, I'm just loved, adored and even guilt tripped for growing up and leaving home. That's all I have.
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