usefull…

My mom suddenly died when I was 25. She used to call every Saturday to check up on me, and that Saturday I let the answering machine pick up. I thought to myself I’d call her the next day. Sunday she wasn’t feeling well, and my father went to church without her. He came home and found her dead. The news was broke by my hysterical father on the phone, the man I grew up with wondering if he had any feelings at all. He grew up in that era where men never cry, and I’d only seen him shed a couple of tears when our dog died, a long time ago, when he buried him in the back yard. This time he was hysterical, and I could barely understand him. A truly, horrible nightmare.

I’ve been trying to forgive myself for not picking up the phone that day. For 7 years now. One day, I’ll be able to do so. One day.

I also remember sitting at the funeral home, and my dad “checking” to make sure she was presentable enough for my two brothers and I to view her. I remember thinking that my mother was no longer here, and seeing her lifeless body would traumatize me forever. I stayed in the waiting room. I’m glad I did. I’ve had enough dreams of her since then, and every one is her full of life, smiling or crying, but alive every time. The way I want to remember her, always.

It will get easier. Not necessarily better, but easier to deal with. I still sometimes find myself waiting for the phone to ring on Saturdays. And every time it does, I’m disappointed by the caller. Because the person calling me is not my mom.

Thank you for reminding me that it’s good to grieve. That part about Greece sounds fantastic. I sincerely wish you and your family well.

I had no idea until I got there that Lambeau Field was closed up tighter than Fort Knox because they were remodeling it. I didn’t think that scattering my father in the parking lot would be cool, so I took him back home with me. We scattered his ashes in his favorite stream in the Adirondacks. It was fiting, but it would have been great to scatter a bit of him at Lambeau.

I still haven’t erased his number from my phone’s contacts, and I still have his ashes. My sister and I are afraid to scatter them because we don’t want to screw it up — nothing seems fitting, nothing seems good enough. And I think that secretly, neither of us is ready to let him go. I hold on to my hurt — I’m afraid to let go of that, too, because it might mean I care a little less, and that’s certainly not the case. Even after two years, I still want to pick up the phone and call him, hear his advice on this guy or that restaurant. I am a bartender, and I don’t work on Father’s Day anymore, and probably never will. (That’s an especially bad day for me becase my Dad actually died ON Father’s Day. What a joke.) Little things, like the way he signed his name on a letter, will set me off unexpectedly and I am paralyzed with emptiness and loss.

I saw an interview in which a man spoke about the loss of his son and described the grief as a weight that one carries around forever. It’s like a heavy object in your pocket, and you’re always aware of it, but you eventually become accustomed to carrying it with you wherever you go. Sometimes you feel weaker and you really feel the burden of the weight, but you always manage to readjust and keep on going. I think that was a really eloquent way to describe it. Here’s the link to the video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1272266708/bclid1280500067/bctid1280493719

Even though it will never really be “okay,” I know from personal experience that in time it becomes easier to manage that weight. Hang in there.