Six weeks. Six weeks today since my dad died. That still sounds so bizarre to say. My dad died. He's dead. What?! What's more bizarre than saying it, is hearing someone else tell me they are sorry that my dad is dead. It's like sometimes I don't realize I'm being talked to because it often seems unreal still.
Last week was a terrible week. The two weeks before were nothing in comparison to the last one. I actually put my bluetooth in on my way to work one morning and picked up the phone and hit my dad's speed dial. I lost it when I realized what I was doing.
Driving home from work one night an oldish (from the 90's) song came on called Holes In The Floor Of Heaven...I listened to it for probably a minute before I realized what I was hearing and I started to cry uncontrollably. I changed the station and another oldish song was playing. A song that was always on my list of potential songs I would dance to with my dad at my wedding some day. "You're beautiful baby from the outside in. Chase your dreams but always know the road that'll lead you home again. Go on, take on this whole world but to me you know you'll always be, my little girl...Someday, some boy will come and ask me for your hand. But I won't say yes to him unless I know he's the half that makes you whole. He has a poet's soul, and the heart of a man's man. I know he'll say that he's in love but between you and me he won't be good enough." That was enough to nearly kill me. I instantly started gasping for air, had to pull of the road and ugly cry it out for a little while until I could drive again. My dad is dead. He will never give a man permission to marry me. He will never walk me down the aisle. He will never dance with me at my wedding. How is that actually reality now?
My mom was up here this weekend looking at condos. Why was she up here looking at condos? Because my dad is dead. As much as I want her to be up here with me, it's unfreakingbelievable that she is considering moving here because he is gone.
Today is my mom's birthday. I was on the phone with her after work last night. I told her "Well, tomorrow is Tuesday and I hate Tuesdays now...but it's your birthday." She said we couldn't be sad tomorrow (today) because it's her birthday and had she never been born, I wouldn't have been either. My response? "Yeah but then I wouldn't be 29 with a dead dad either." What the hell is wrong with me?!?! Who actually says that?
I read in a book last week that generally after three months your grief intensifies, not to mention birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc... Great. I'm glad I have that to look forward to.
What really throws me is how much I love everything else in my life. How happy I am with everything else in my life. Yet I have this unbelievable shock and sadness in my heart that sometimes just absolutely stops me in my tracks. Sometimes it physically hurts. I'm still not sleeping very well. I still have days at a time where I can't keep anything down or days where I have no appetite period. There are days where it's all I can do to simply get through the day and just get home to my bed so I can shut the rest of the world out and not have to be a functioning human. Yet then there are times I have a lot of fun with my friends and family, enjoy my time with my little monkey at work, enjoy cooking and baking, making plans for the future.
Grief is the most unnerving and ugly thing I've ever encountered. There is no easy way to get through it. You can't bypass it. You can't sleep it away. You can't avoid it. There is nothing anyone can ever say to you that legitimately makes you feel better. I've had more migraines in the last six week than in the past year combined. Sometimes I can feel the pain in my chest. Sometimes I want and need to cry and the tears never come. Other times they hit me hard and fall out of my eyes like water coming out of a faucet with no end in sight.
I read something a few weeks ago that struck me. "The day you died the musical score of my life was forever changed. A sad undertone was added. Some days it is very loud. Some days it is very soft. But it is always there. I am thankful for the days when I can hear the joyful melody of life. I will listen to your song forever in my heart."
There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss my dad. Some days it breaks me...some days I am seemingly fine, normal even.
xoxo
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