Current mood: Powder keg 💣💥
It’s September. Ya know what, this year has sucked royally. I thought last year was bad, but Jesus...I jinxed the almighty hell out of that with my last post. COVID is still running rampant, the politicians are slurping everyone dry, social media keyboard warriors continue to inflame everyone with its lies and hypocrisy. My father died.
That last one cancels out everything else. I look at those three words, and the previous complaints just vanish into useless dust. My father died. My fantastic, perfect, ever-loving dad is gone. I can kick everything else pretty much to the curb, but not the loss of my dad. I can't think of a big enough word for the enormity of his passing.
My family is pretty tight. We do everything together. We vacation together, we talk to each other every day, we SEE each other every day. My husband and I live in the house I grew up in (everyone else left), and my dad pretty much built everything I see. He’s everywhere, in every piece of paneling, in every carpet, in every piece of striped wallpaper. (He hated stripes. “Can you pick something OTHER than stripes?” he’d grouse. “Do you not understand that no wall is level in this house?” Yet he’d put it up straight every time.) Pictures of him are all over the place. It’s become a habit to blow a kiss at his picture before I go to bed at night.
And then, in June, during what should have been a simple outpatient procedure, he went into V-FIB, and bang, he was gone, just like that. Thanks to the COVID rules that wouldn’t let me and my sister into the hospital to see him before his procedure – “sign here, answer these questions, give me your driver’s licenses, wait until I xerox this and this and THIS” – the last image we have of our father is of him sprawled on a table in the ICU while a doctor straddled him, administering CPR. That image is seared into my brain. He would have been horrified for us to see him like that, and yet that was the only way we could. And so now, 3 months later, here I am. The first man in my life – the only one, for so many years – is no more.
How do I feel? What a stupid question that is. How the fuck do you think I feel?
Lost.
Rudderless.
Mad.
Depressed as hell.
According to the Psychology 101 twits, I’m stuck in the swirling mess of a Kübler-Ross chart. About the time I feel like I’m getting out, I fall right back in again. All it takes is a picture on the wall. The sound of his voice on the answering machine. His chair, still in the upright position in which he left it as the paramedics helped him out of it to take him to the hospital. His handwriting on a box in the closet. A random thought – “I need to tell Dad about that” – and then realizing I can’t.
Now my acquaintances are sympathetic, sure. But I swear to God if I hear one more time that it “gets better” and “he’s always with you” and more and more of the dime-store Hallmark/Psych 101 stuff, I might cut someone. My sarcasm is pretty sharp, and is a hell of a lot more prominent these days.
“He’s out of pain now.” Really? That’s great, Psych 101 textbook page 10.
“You should talk to someone.” Wow, Psych 101, page 14. I don’t talk to anyone normally, so why would I pay someone? The first thing they’d do is prescribe something that can mess with my head. My head’s enough of a mess, thanks. Pass.
“I’m praying for you.” Aw, really? Thanks. You go home to your family now, your sympathy card has been played. Pat yourself on the back for your ingenuity and sacrifice. Meanwhile, I'll look at the empty chair my dad sat in to watch TV and remember how you're "praying."
“You’ll see him again someday.” This one really makes me want to punch through a wall. Irrationality be damned. I don’t want someday, I want now. I want to go to Disney World and ride Pirates of the Caribbean with him. I want to go on a cruise with him and watch his delight when they bring cherries jubilee to our table. I want to listen to music with him in my car, with the volume turned way up. I’ll even watch old cowboy movies with him. I want his hugs and his laughter and his jokes and his voice. I just want him here, with us, where he belongs.
Death is a wakeup call, you know? You find out who your friends are, you realize just how much of your life is cluttered with stuff that doesn’t matter, and you discover REAL quick that dying, not living, is expensive and confusing and uncaring. Throw in a fucked-up U.S. postal system, a heartless bunch of government officials, and a pile of bills for lawyers, funeral parlors, and accountants, and you’re stuck in the seventh level of Chaos with no exit sign and the elevator is out of order.
You know what’s really best? Just say “I’m sorry.” Even if you’re not. Because unless you’re someone who can rewind time, or bring them back, all that other stuff is complete rot, despite what Hallmark and Psych 101 want you to believe. Just shut up, sit down, offer a Kleenex, and say "I'm sorry." That goes a long way.
Okay, time to get out of this mire. Anyone know a good mechanic? Things can only go up. I hope so.
-Becca
