* Disclaimer of sorts – This post is a bit of an emotional feely one. If you are not in the mood for it then it might be best to move on. *
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Grief.
Is it something that someone can be good at? Because if it is, I would be declared rather rotten at it.
I know that there are a number of things that I may actually be good at, I can’t think of them, but there must be. And if I had to make a list of those things I can tell you that “dealing with grief/loss/hurt/pain” is not on there. It wouldn’t even make the very, very bottom of the list.
I thought I was ready for my Dad to leave us.
We had been preparing ourselves for years. Well I thought I had. But I think I was preparing myself in the wrong way. Distancing myself from him so it wouldn’t hurt so much when it happened and maybe it worked. Maybe I haven’t had a good cry because of it, but I can’t help but feel sick to the stomach that I should have been there more. Putting my need to “cope” over his need to feel loved. What kind of a person am I?
Yes we did things for him and my Mom, tried to include him in everything and financially took on a lot, but was I there for him as a daughter? I don’t know if I can answer that with a yes.
On the night he passed, I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words out loud to him. I just kept thinking, ” I love you Dad, I love you Dad, I love you Dad” in the stupid hope that he could feel it. It’s almost as though saying it out loud would be giving it permission to happen. Like I even had any control.
Maybe the grief isn’t so bad because we have been grieving all along. Each time he lost the ability to do something new it affected us all. Slowly losing the ability to live while still being alive.
Again I ask you, what the hell is wrong with me.
In they hype and busyness of it all I still think of him reading my posts or cuddling up with the heater and watching the rugby or posting funny statuses on Facebook.
Then in the quiet moments my brain connects that thought with the finality, that no, no he won’t. No, he won’t be reading about the plague of sickness that we are trying to claw our way out of right now, no he won’t be complaining that it’s so cold and that we need to get more heaters and no, there are no updates on Facebook.
Because he is gone.
He really is.
And in those quiet moments, that as a Mom of 3 you don’t really get to experience too often…
In those quiet moments…
It hits.
