Killing It In My Sixties

I keep counting the days. I think that — in my mind, maybe as the number grows – it will hurt less. But it doesn’t. Hurt less. It hurts different – every day the grief morphs into a new version of sadness, anger and barely-able-to-contain irritability. The Five Stages of Grief that you read about is a neat and tidy timeline. One where you progress from one stage to the next until you are finished.

But …. Grief is anything but neat and tidy. It’s manic. One minute you are numb and thinking, “Okay – I got this – I’m going to be fine – I really AM stronger than I thought I would be”. Ten minutes later you are yelling at the copy machine technician to just “send the fucking yellow toner”!

The nights are long – waking up frequently; a fleeting thought that maybe it was all a dream, finally giving up on sleep and sitting out on the balcony to watch the sun rise. The days are a little easier to get through – with all the distractions of work, laundry, grocery shopping, and the non-negotiable errands of life.

But the grief never leaves you. It is there while someone is yammering at you incessantly about something insignificant. It’s there while you are brushing your teeth, and while you are pretending to be engaged in a work meeting while all you are thinking is, ‘he’s gone and never coming back’.

When I am home alone, all I want to do is sleep. When I am asleep it doesn’t hurt and I can count off more time that has passed since he died. I’m afraid to be around people because my anger is bubbling just below the surface, silently resenting a world that is marching on without him.

I don’t know what I expected and I find myself seriously wondering how people carry on after the death of a beloved parent. I feel like there is something critically wrong with me because I am having trouble envisioning a day when I am not aching. My tears are always just below the surface waiting to bubble over; holding them back feels like my throat is closing up with intense pain, When I unleash them – they scare me and I fear they would scare other people.

I know I can’t be me right now – this is a new me I have never met – I am completely lost trying to figure out how to incorporate this me into the old me. The ME – when I had a Dad, a Dad I could call and talk to and laugh with. A Dad I could ask for advice and seek his opinion or perspective. The me that knew there was one person in the whole world who loved me unconditionally, forever. Thirty days and seven hours ago.