Several lovely people have reached out to check in with me since my dad died. I am so appreciative, thank you. I haven’t posted because I honestly don’t know how I’m doing.
My mother called once, mostly to talk about her newly widowed resolutions: making no major decisions for a year. She spoke at length about Dad in past tense, with a couple of ‘He always used to say to me,’s and ‘Your dad was always X’. The work of turning him from a person into canon, I guess. Also, discussion of her evolving identity, as the surviving half of a 40+ year partnership. A passing sentence dedicated to the possibility of finding love again.
Internet, I was so over it. Maybe that makes me a callous brat, but it felt like I was attending the table read for the next Bridget Jones’ Diary installment. Perhaps something more wistful and Under The Tuscan Sun-esque. Good for my mom and all, but I’m wishing for some more solid boundaries as we continue this journey.
At least until the next time I’m feeling needy and enmeshed.
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Probably as no surprise to anyone, I think what I feel most following my father’s death is relief. I would not say, ‘at least he’s not suffering anymore,’ because that seems to imply dead is better than suffering, which is not how Dad felt. So I guess the best I can do is: I’m glad nothing else can hurt him. And selfishly, I’m glad it can’t get worse.
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My mother emailed a draft of Dad’s obituary to a select group of family, requesting feedback. The Exes were cc’d, and they reply all’d their responses. My spam folder is on collection duty, but I opened a recent one.
In it, The Ex told a story about my dad, framed as things we might not know. As it turned out, I did know the story. I’m not sure what to do with the idea that The Exes have/might have some unknown piece of my father, that by excluding them, I exclude him/his memory. It doesn’t tempt me to re-initiate contact, but I don’t like that I was compelled to read their email.
Mostly, it’s unsettling to dis-include myself from part of my father’s funeral planning because they are included. But I also understand it’s my choice to do so.
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I’ve spent hours checking google flights, every day, for maybe a week. I am mad to Get! Away!
Except when it gets down to details and hotel bookings and itineraries, there is really no place to go that would solve whatever I am trying to escape. It seems like every third day, I come to this realization and close the browser. But on the fourth day, I am back at it, quite sure Madrid in June would solve all my ills, or a getaway to Palm Springs without the kids is just the thing!
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Lastly, I was referred to a neurologist for continuing neuropathy weirdness. The specialist was very nice but definitely egg-headed and with awkward social skills. He said things like, “I’m going to be typing notes, and asking questions in a specific format to keep track of everything. But please understand, I’m interested in what you have to say.”
Which was helpful. But it’s still very strange to spill your guts to a stranger staring at a computer screen, who appears to be completely distracted, and occasionally asks you to stop talking for a minute.
I disclosed not just the physical problems, but some my current life circumstances as well, because it seemed a reasonable contributing factor. Perhaps some of you can relate to the unease of wanting to be taken seriously with your weird symptoms, rather than the doctor dismissing them as due to ‘stress’ or being ‘psychosomatic’. While at the same time, also hoping you don’t have a ‘real’ biological problem that is fucking up your system. I feel like an asshole even writing that. It’s all real. Still felt this way.
Anyway, I told the doctor that my dad died in February (which seemed like a tremendous overshare somehow) to which he responded, typety-type-type. Then at the end of the visit, in what’s sure to become the defining question of all future medical visits, I told him Dad probably had Lewy Body AND neuropathy. Was there any known connection between my current symptoms and developing dementia later in life?
The doctor explained the two were not known to be connected. The only early predictor he knew of for Parkinson-family problems were lots of movement during REM sleep. He looked awkwardly away and resumed his typing.
I thought, Well fuck him. I needed that answer, I don’t care what he thinks of me.
Still awkward as hell, he turned back to me and said, “I’m sorry about your dad. My mother died two years ago this week. It’s… it never stops being strange.”
Like some secret handshake in a grim but exclusive club. I cried all the way home. Strange is exactly what it feels like.
Pupper of the week: Clyde
Looks cute. Constantly bites his brothers right in the wiener until they yelp. Tried to drop a deuce on my shoe this morning, as I was cleaning up other poops. Like literally hovering over the hole in my croc. Possibly the most honest review crocs have ever received.
So I have been sort of in a whirlwind of life and am not sure if I knew your dad died or not. I remember it being Close To The End, but not sure I knew. So I acknowledge his passing on the day that 2 years ago my father passed. He also had Lewy Body and neuropathy from a stroke years prior. It is possibly less weird for me in that I didn’t see him very often. 3000 miles apart and all. There are times when I am reminded of him being a resource for me. Dad, my car is making this noise, or how do you relight the pilot on the furnace. But as I got older and my life was very different from his, it was more about just hanging out when we could be together. I am also glad it will not get worse. My dad died from pneumonia, Someone I know who used to be a nurse said it was often called an old persons best friend. Ended things earlier and more quietly than if they lived longer with whatever ailment they had. It would have been much harder on my mom if he lived longer, but now she is lonely. Sigh. You have my permission to be however you need to, do whatever you need to during this time. Peace to you.
There’s this crepe paper thin boundary between here and there, between gone and not gone long enough. You will spend the rest of your life shifting between peering through the paper like a foggy night with shitty headlights looking for some semblance of a landmark of the past and the other part being amazed at how easily the past pokes back through the paper and touches your memory like the first shaft of sunlight that hits your eyes through the blinds in the morning. Death of a loved one is both shattering and smoothing because it breaks apart the carefully built reality we live in and then it lays it all flat like the future we saw coming at the end of a long stretch of highway. The further away my brother’s death gets, the more I feel like I’m peering through that fog but damn is it glorious when he pokes through and reminds me he was here and he will always be in my memories. Sending you love and strength for the push and pull that are coming as you and your mom find a new way to relate.??
Holy smokes, you are still moving and talking and doing stuff. That makes you mighty! Sometimes it seems like living is a hard enough balance, I can’t even imagine adding grief and adjusting to life alteringly new things to the mess. Go, Anne, GO!
you’re doing fine <3
I saw the cute pup pic on FB before I clicked… then I read the post and scrolled down to the little face again. Call is being super suggestible, but as I scrolled over that cute puppy face, I saw every bit of his shitty behavior in that little face – smug and plotting and oblivious to consequences, and knowing he’s super cute, etc.
Some of the most cathartic moments of grief, for me, have been what I call the dark thoughts. For example, when I used a picture of my sister in her memorial slide show that she would have hated; well, she died, so she doesn’t get to decide. All deciding, all the time over here, so there. And I share the dark thoughts sparingly with those who I hope can handle it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think them, revel in them, sometimes…
All that to say, still right here in your corner. Every day in every way… whatever it takes to get you through the day.
Do you, do whatever you need to do… grief is a bumpy ride especially when you need to witness or manage other people through the process as well.
Big hug.
Gosh that sounds hard, love.
My 2 cents is maybe you should go on the holiday? You feel strange at home – why not feel strange somewhere unusual, where you can eat and drink things you don’t usually eat and drink, and see pretty sights, and stay in a nice hotel for a few days? It won’t make everything feel better and normal, but it might be nice to indulge yourself a little. It’s not like pre-internet times when you’d be basically cutting yourself off from all contact no matter what. You can still choose to be easily reachable by others if you want to – just from a nicer location.
(Er, not that your house sucks, I just mean holiday places are a nice change, lol)
Aaaalso it might be kind of like a soft reset for you, too. Another thing to mark the change between your dad being around, and your dad having passed. For me, sometimes resets like that can be a good way to help me process. (Sometimes – and other times I need to be in my normal life.)
Obviously it is not up to me, though! And if you choose not to in the next month, you can still choose to go in 2 months, or in a year, or whatever.
That comment from the doctor had me wrinkling my nose sympathetically. Gah, to both of you (that’s my articulate comment).
Love the brat puppy. 🙂
I told my mom to never include me on mass email with her brother and she just did that recently (he is my ex family). There’s a lot of fucking feelings there, ugh. It’s easier when I also hate my mom I guess, but still have limited contact because I don’t know. Hi I’m here. If there is a place dads go I hope ours are there hanging out telling dad jokes (my dad didn’t do this in life but who knows what my dead dad does? Nothing? I don’t know.)