Hi All,
A little less than two hours before it is exactly a year since my Dad's death. I have tried to write this stupid post so many times. Maybe ten. Deleted or didn't finish each time. I have tried so hard to wrap a ribbon around this year for myself mostly. Wanted to come up with some hard won knowledge or wisdom. Kept thinking if I mine this pain just one more time than maybe I'll have some shiny and beautiful thing. Maybe the shiny and beautiful thing is not there. Maybe it is there and I just cant see it yet because I keep getting distracted by how cold and scary the mine is. I really don't know. I know that much, I know I don't know much.
On my way home tonite I was doing my new/old thing of crying only alone and in the car --which was a trick I had back from when I was trying to not cry all day or at work. I realized wow, I have not been crying in my car for a while. Then I realized, how weird life is. I was pumping gas at Quik Check at a Super Quik Check and it was cold and windy and dark for 5:15 and I looked around at all of us, pumping our gas, and there was like 15 of us out there in this huge gas station with fluorescent lights, pumping gas. All of us in varying states of disarray. Me crying. No one noticing or caring. Me thinking about how so many people are in pain and I need to stop thinking it is just me. Me looking around and seeing that, yes, it could be that many of these people are in pain. Me and Super Quik Check people are connected. We are all here, cold, trying to get home to somewhere warm and safe and ok. Some of us will.
I got in my car with my coffee and donuts and thought about how this cold world that was full of pain and adversity seemed so clear standing at the gas station. In the car it was sort of clear. At home, it would seem a more faint memory. The beauty of my children seems to push out all possibility for self pity, self loathing, mean spiritedness. I wondered how can these two worlds live as one. The world where my Dad is dead and it hurts with the world where my kids are here and perfect and full of love, and mess, and questions. I want them separate so much. Compartments. Leave the pain in the car. Keep that pain away, down, aside. Protect them. Protect me.
I drive home crying looking for tissues under the passenger seat with one arm. I finally find them in the driveway. I use the last two. I sort of laugh thinking about my Dad keeping donuts under his passenger seat. I think of how it was funny then and now. Think about not knowing much except I should keep tissues in my car. Think about this year teaching me to feel my pain as not unique, to use it to connect, not hide, and everyone so often to buy donuts. Then, as one last thing, I think of my Dad and how I miss him every single day and how that is ok too. xxK
A little less than two hours before it is exactly a year since my Dad's death. I have tried to write this stupid post so many times. Maybe ten. Deleted or didn't finish each time. I have tried so hard to wrap a ribbon around this year for myself mostly. Wanted to come up with some hard won knowledge or wisdom. Kept thinking if I mine this pain just one more time than maybe I'll have some shiny and beautiful thing. Maybe the shiny and beautiful thing is not there. Maybe it is there and I just cant see it yet because I keep getting distracted by how cold and scary the mine is. I really don't know. I know that much, I know I don't know much.
On my way home tonite I was doing my new/old thing of crying only alone and in the car --which was a trick I had back from when I was trying to not cry all day or at work. I realized wow, I have not been crying in my car for a while. Then I realized, how weird life is. I was pumping gas at Quik Check at a Super Quik Check and it was cold and windy and dark for 5:15 and I looked around at all of us, pumping our gas, and there was like 15 of us out there in this huge gas station with fluorescent lights, pumping gas. All of us in varying states of disarray. Me crying. No one noticing or caring. Me thinking about how so many people are in pain and I need to stop thinking it is just me. Me looking around and seeing that, yes, it could be that many of these people are in pain. Me and Super Quik Check people are connected. We are all here, cold, trying to get home to somewhere warm and safe and ok. Some of us will.
I got in my car with my coffee and donuts and thought about how this cold world that was full of pain and adversity seemed so clear standing at the gas station. In the car it was sort of clear. At home, it would seem a more faint memory. The beauty of my children seems to push out all possibility for self pity, self loathing, mean spiritedness. I wondered how can these two worlds live as one. The world where my Dad is dead and it hurts with the world where my kids are here and perfect and full of love, and mess, and questions. I want them separate so much. Compartments. Leave the pain in the car. Keep that pain away, down, aside. Protect them. Protect me.
I drive home crying looking for tissues under the passenger seat with one arm. I finally find them in the driveway. I use the last two. I sort of laugh thinking about my Dad keeping donuts under his passenger seat. I think of how it was funny then and now. Think about not knowing much except I should keep tissues in my car. Think about this year teaching me to feel my pain as not unique, to use it to connect, not hide, and everyone so often to buy donuts. Then, as one last thing, I think of my Dad and how I miss him every single day and how that is ok too. xxK
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