I’ve been thinking about dad a lot lately and I’ve been sad. Life has been moving fast, but I think about him all the time. I was on trip recently. I have a tendancy to stare out of the window on planes and watch the earth while I ponder things. There’s this feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when I think about how much my life has been changed by dad’s death. It’s so painful. A lot of the time I’m fine, but there are times when I feel so lost, like I don’t know how to live without him. Sometimes I’m so confident in what advice he would give to me about something and other times I doubt it all. I think to myself, ‘you’re making all of this up and you have NO idea what he would say.’ I know this is all normal. How can it not be?
I’ve been remembering his final days a lot though. I can’t get them out of my head. I remember when they finally arrived to pick up his body and take it to the funeral home. Rigamortis had set in and when they picked him up from the bed his legs just knocked together from being so stiff. The life was gone from him. I just keep seeing that image. And replaying how fast it all happened. I was having a conversation with him and then all of the sudden there were no more conversations.
I was so stupid to think that I would be doing better than I am. I think the denial (not conscious) is starting to wear off. I cry all the time now. I was writing Sister a letter the othr day and started crying. I was watching one of the NCAA games the other day (which by the way, I never do) and started crying. I saw a picture of him with Brother and I and started crying. I came down with the flu last week and for whatever reason thought about him being sick and started crying. When I went to the doctor, it was one of those times when everything just falls in line. Somehow I hit all of the green lights, the lot was full until the moment I pulled up to it, as crowded as the lot was, I found a place immediately on the first floor, etc. And even though I knew better, I blamed it all on dad. It’s so silly, but I remember smiling and saying “thank you” under my breath.
When I was sick and called my dad to talk he would always express how sincerely sorry he was that I wasn’t feeling well. It was one of those things that you would dismiss quickly and probably not think about, but I’ve been thinking about it recently. “I’m really sorry you’re not feeling well,” he would say. And you knew that he meant it. When it echoes in my head now, I can hear it. It sounds so childish to say this, but I was feeling so awful, I wanted something, anything, to make me feel better, so I called my mom. I told her why I was calling and she too was very sorry about how I was feeling, but I think she liked the fact that her voice brought me comfort. Of course she did.
