They never call, they never write, they never stop in to visit.

This pithy comment you used to say to me was usually accompanied by a melancholy sigh as you remembered those you had lost. Now it is you who are the rude one Daddy dearest.

It has been over a year since you had the temerity to die in my arms, unexpectedly and dramatically, making as big a splash in your death as you were wont to do in your life.

I’ve cried, I’ve failed to sleep most nights, I’ve thought of all the loving things I’d like to say to you and the things I did right and all the things I should have done differently.

I’ve been out to visit my brother twice. He’s been home to see us three times. Your absence is a glue or a rubber band, yanking us back together in a way a life time of children and successes could not.

I am getting sicker. I am glad you aren’t here to see it. I am equally certain you died knowing it was going to happen. You were nobody’s fool, we have known for a while that sicker was in the pipeline, that a cure was no longer on the table, that the future held scary uncertainties. As much as I still long to have you here to talk to about all this or to hold my hand I am glad you don’t have to actually see it.

It’s the small things. The small comforts. Finding an article you wrote. Wearing your sweater. Listening to an interview you gave on CPS.

You are missed my dear one. Terribly.

You are also very, very rude.

It’s the waiting. 

you have no choices. 

and crumbling 

internally

out of sight

little by little or boulder by beastly boulder. 

6/2/23

MEwegen

I do not believe in Heaven.

I believe this one life is the beautiful, shining opportunity we get to make the most of our time.

So when my Dad died in my arms in late February some of the shock and soul-searing pain stemmed from my belief that he is gone.

Gone, gone, gone.

Never coming back gone.

Also, that I will not see him again. There is no after-life wherein we get to hug it out and catch up on all he has missed. He will simply miss it and I will miss him.

In the time between then and now the only comfort I’ve had is knowing that I showed him and told him every single day that I loved him like crazy. That, and the fact that he is done with all the things that can go wrong in a life, he doesn’t have to worry, fret, or feel pain. He is free.

If I go down to his workroom and close my eyes I can almost remember the smell of him when he did woodworking.

If the day is quiet and I have slept well I can close my eyes and see his last expression or remember our last words to each other.

If I wear his sweater when I’m crying myself to sleep in a world where my father no longer lives than I get peace from knowing the molecules in that sweater once touched him.

I cannot feel him with me because he is no longer here.

I don’t know if this means my grief is different from someone who believes in Heaven but I do know that I feel completely bereft and all of the kind words in the world about having my Dad with me here in some capacity are not comforting.

Just tell me this shit sucks and that losing your person is really hard and then lets go get coffee. If I can breathe I might open up and tell you that sometimes when I can’t sleep I go down to the living room and have a snack with his ashes, remembering all the times in our lives our insomnia drove us to be downstairs, late at night, raiding the fridge, together.