The Grief

Repost from Russisms.com original date February 6 2010:

The last month or so I have been reading about grief. I look back at the last few months and I cant remember whole days, or what I did. I have sucked ASS at work. It is a wonder the house has not caught fire and the kids are all still alive. Other days seem like a dream. I dont remember really living them. Christmas was a bland, thankless, hopless holiday that I barely survived. It is an unsaid thing with lots of people that I know, or maybe I am just assuming, but the underlying feeling that I should not be this upset, this undone-anymore. But I am. I thought, and had people say to me- "you are depressed." I dont feel depressed. I know that it odd coming from someone who can't stop crying, or can't concentrate, or can't work, but I am not suicidal. I am not self loathing or concentrated on myself. I want to go to the doctor, but I know all he will do is write me a perscription for an anti depressant and want me to see the therapist. (The therapist I have already seen and stopped seeing becuase he told me about a year ago the answer to my problems was to get divorced.) I don't mind trying to find another therapist. I have one in mind. But I need something now. I check out some books from the library, some pretty good ones that explain grief and the difference between it and depression. I am not depressed. And I dont need medication because that is exactly my problem. I have tried not to feel. I have tried to stay busy, and make plans and surround myself with people, and I got caught up in not getting down to the nitty gritty of the pain. Of the realization that most of all- the first or second person who ever held me is dead. That one of the two voices I already knew before I was even born-he is dead. My lifelong attatchment to safety and security and a sureity that no matter what came along, I would be alright, well, he is dead. I tried so hard to be okay, and I realized that I cant make myself be okay. Just like I knew when I was first in love that I was in love....That love, just like this grief has to run its own course. I can't control it deep inside. I can weild it I guess. I can shove it down and pretend it isnt happeneing, but that doesnt make it go away. It is still there. As awful and as great as it is, this grief is the last thing I was given by my dad. People say they find good it grief. AND that is never goes away. I realize the people that say it gets better over time are well meaning and all, but they either have never had someone die that is close to them, or they are just plain lying to you in kindness to try and make you feel better. And I dont know what people should have said to help, probably nothing. There is nothing I can say to my friend who lost her baby about a year ago to make her feel better. It is so odd in our society that we feel like we have to make everything "better" again as soon as possible. This has changed me. I am a different person. I am not sure who I am anymore or yet, but I know there are a few things I used to love and now I care not for them. There are things I did not mind so much and now, the thought of them lights fires in my brain. I believe it might be the grief that makes me worry so when my family drives away in the car. All happy and together, and me alone getting ready for work. And crying. I cant stop crying when they drive away until they come home. My dad drove away, and he NEVER came home. He said goodbye to us all that bright happy day and...well everyone knows the rest. Those long sleepless nights. Those shadowy haunting dreams. The long endless days that feel like they never really happened. And I worry. I am next. My kids are next. Glen is next. My mom. Gram. Granny Gee. We are all just a day away? A week away? A year. I do not know. And this worry, I suppose that is the peace I search for. Coming to peace with death. Knowing that it is okay for me to strive for what I want to do because there will be some meaning in the end. In my death. For now, why should I try? WHy do I work hard and be better? I will just die. Why train the dog or clean the house or go to school or go to work? I will go off one day and hopefully die a quick and near painless way. And what will I leave behind? Money? It doesnt help if the people who love me feel the way I feel about my dad. All the money in the world wont make my little broken heart. Pictures? I cant even look at pictures yet. I have empty spaces on the walls where his pictures are supposed to go. And they say everyone's grief is different. No one knows the journey for someone else. I try to think rationally, that just cause my family has just driven off they will not end up all dead on the side of the road somewhere, but in this grief, in this worry and in this bottomless search for some peace, I am afraid. I believe in life after death. I believe we choose eachother before birth and there fore logically would end up together after death. But I do not feel my dad. He is gone. He is nowhere. He has not come except only in a dream. And I am sorry, and I am selfish, but that is NOT good enough. I know Gramps is out there. I have felt him and smelled him and heard him. But dad. He has diserted me. He has given up on me, on our relationship? He is busy people say. He is with people that need him. WHAT AM I? I have been moved into his perverbial spot-worried about all these people around me. They calling me for help and advice. They looking to me to go "rip off some heads and shit down some necks" as he used to say. Everyone else gets to be....they get to be. No one asks me-how are you? That grief has been reserved for my mother. I am her strenghth, her protector. But mine? HE IS DEAD. He is dead. And I feel guilty and selfish and a failure because I cant concentrate or get shit done. And I cry for no reason, and I hate going to work. And I hate that I let the little problems that happened after he died grow into big problems. And I hate that I didnt just do this in the beginning. That it's almost two years out and I still feel this way. I looked at all those pictures the first few weeks, and I died a thousand deaths those days, and now, I cant stand to look at one. And it's inevitable. If I want to move on from this part, I need to face it, and feel it. And try not to let other things get in the way. But at the same time I am trying to be better. A better person, make better decisions, find some peace. Let me say, the day he died, Dad came in and Justin ran in and met him in the hall at the top of the stairs. Dad picked him up and I watched him. He stood there for a long moment hugging that baby boy. And I watched him and I remember thinking "that is weird, that is extra long....what is going on?" and deep down I knew. I KNEW!! Dad walked down the hall just a bit out of my sight, he still had Justin and they were talking. I could not hear. After a moment they walked back into my sight and dad looked at me, he smiled. He put Justin down. AND I KNEW!!! Oh God I knew. Dad moved on to talking with the other boys and sitting and talking and eating at the table. And somehow I try to pretend that through Justin he was hugging me also. And I wish. And I say, I promise I would have let him go on that day to do what ever he needed to do. I would have let him go and drive away that day if he would only hug me. TOUCH ME. Please. Let's go back to that day. I will let you go.




I can do nothing but sob for a while. I can barely breath in this pain. The storm of that memory subsides and the cold, knawing pains of everyday life return in it's place. This is where I live for now. If you were to look inside me I am stormy and torn apart. I am afraid. And I have no answers. I fear those moments when people touch me alittle longer or say I love you a little out of place, I scream into myself afraid that this is a LAST moment. Pay attention you idiot. And I remember that last moment. The moment I knew looking back. We all die. I am not afraid of that. People I love will be there. I know that. I am afraid of being a survivor. Am I strong enough? What do I have to give? Should I even be worried about giving a lot right now? There is not a whole lot for me to hand out....I will go now. And I will pretend that it does not hurt so much. I will pretend that I can do it and that I just have a cold if you call and I sound funny (if I answer the phone at all.) I will cry in my car alone when I meet someone that reminds me of my dad. I will continue to try to judge just how much to share when you ask how I'm doing. And that I am okay, becuause most people I know still have both parents and just arent sure what to do or what to say. And I will go today and put the flowers the kids and I picked out for Grandpa on his grave. And I will try not to think about how much it is not my dad under that frozen ground, and I will try not to think about how soft and warm he was or how big and strong his hands are. I will go and while afraid for other deaths, other heartbreaks to come, I will look for peace and try to come through this, maybe not the same person but still somewhat intact.....