I feel like I have been numb over the past week. I cancelled my patients on Wednesday after my dad passing on Tuesday, which gave me until yesterday before I had to go back to work. I stayed mostly away from emails and to-do’s. I had this wired tired sensation that lived within me. I was scared at times. I got called out for not being compassionate with myself (thanks honey, xo).
The wired tired I finally understood. After Jesse and Bella died, I had to make so many decisions and my to do list was immense. I took two months off work, but worked my butt off in that time. I had to go through, pack up, and get rid of stuff from my home, find and move to a new one, and grieve. And take care of my daughter. It helped actually, because I went non-stop from the time I woke until I went to sleep, and although I grieved, I was busy. This past week, I did not have that to-do list and wandered aimlessly. I felt like there were things to do, there were not, and I was antsy. I was also exhausted because anyone who has grieved, it takes so much out of you.
The scared is simple. After Jesse and Bella died, my mind was a living hell. I struggled every day to fight to live when all I wanted to be was with my sweet Bella and out of the pain I was in. Raffi was the anchor. After a long time, I started to pull slowly out of that every second of every day to now, very occasionally. I came to a place 6-9 months ago where I learned that I could have happiness again, that lived alongside the sad. I wanted to live and live fully. This past week, I started feeling the weight of grief, the albatross, the sinking feeling, this intense heaviness and exhaustion that threatens my will. I know I will pull out of it. But it still scares me.
I was called out last week. As you have read, I hold myself to a ridiculous standard. I blame my dad for this one. It can be a good thing and not so good. The time in September and my last visit, in his true form, he was telling stories when he had the breath to do so. He had, I don’t even know how many back surgeries. On one of the first ones, on the way home from the hospital, he told me mom to stop at Home Depot. She wanted a fountain of sorts and he wanted to pick up some materials for it. He laughed as he told me that he ran into his surgeon who just shook his head. My dad was not one who took to restrictions or anything that held him back, including being sick. I am definitely like that, and often tell my body to get its proverbial shit together. I was complaining I could not think a coherent thought last Thursday evening. Keep in mind this is two days after my dad died. I got a look and was told, you are not being compassionate. I said, what the hell? I think to myself. Because I work on being one of the most compassionate people around. And then he finished the sentence – with yourself. Ahhh. Yes. Point taken, recorded and will be a continuous work in process.
My dad. Across the Facebook, I read many tributes to him as tears and smiles came across my face. I did not talk to him everyday, but responded with an I love you to the texts that started everyday from him after Jesse and Bella died. We usually talked once a week, depending on how each of us were feeling from short bit to longer, and those were lovely. I held back often on how I was, not wanting him to worry if I was having a hard time. He knew. We, like most parents and children had our ups and downs, and over the last few years, I came to a peace as much as I was going to, sort of, with it all. There was certainly not any of it left over the past year or so. The funny thing is, it is not until you are an adult that you can have the perspective of the good and bad each parent imparted on you that you carry through this life.
My dad. I loved Christmas until Jesse and Bella died. I have gone through the motions since. This year, I put up even more things, as it was his favorite time of year in honor of him, though the bittersweetness was, bittersweet. I realized this last visit, right before he died, he and I were talking about Christmas. A light bulb of one of the reasons I loved it was that it was one of the few times I saw my mom and dad happy together. He agreed, saying that it was her favorite as well. They knew how to throw a party. Christmas eve was usually 30-40 people, and Christmas day not far behind. It is one of the other things I gleamed from them both, how to host a big gathering. I actually love it. Having 19 people at our table at Thanksgiving was a true joy, and getting to send that picture to him, priceless. He actually loved and was a great cook, something none of us really knew until after my mom and him divorced. I still to this day cannot make fish as good as him, but I got his chicken soup recipe pretty much down. He taught me my love of wood. I have so many memories from my childhood helping or watching him out in the garage building things. I look at a piece of wood and admire the grain, the finish, the quality because of him. I am able to go into a house and remodel it with my thoughts because of him. I see a piece of wood and start imagining what I could make with it because of him. That is one of my goals is to be able to do that. I got my travel bug from him, and we talked about that a lot. He taught me how to be successful in business. He demonstrated inter-personal skills that I cannot even put into words, a lot of which I have. Every one that came into his life he welcomed and shared with, you felt like family. “If you need anything, you let me know” was a phrase he emitted often. Generous and kind are two words that will always be associated with him, and that does not even encapsulate it. He loved his family. He was hilarious when he told a story and had you hooked. This was until the end. We were in the hospital room, and he was telling one of them and the nurse had taken his vitals and doing some chart notes on the computer, you could tell she was taking her time listening in and cracking up right alongside us. He rallied this last Thanksgiving and wanted to “host” the wing he was in at the hospital. My brother in law and niece cooked, they wheeled him in and he sat and watched everyone partake, just like old times. I was trying to sleep the other night and could not as tears kept coming out because I kept seeing him at the head of the table. And now that will be empty.
Like I said last week, I know he is not suffering any longer. I hold that. And. I also hold the sadness, the loss. The physical presence. And man, it was a physical presence. Many of my friends over the years asked, way your dad in the mafia? He certainly looked and acted the part. Well, not the killing of people part. But that engaging and enticing presence that you just wanted to be around. The head of the table. The story teller. The one who lived life fully. He wanted me to be happy. He so wanted to take the pain away after Jesse and Bella died. He couldn’t. He said over and over to me that he wanted me to be happy after. Over the past year he got to see that again. He knew the sadness was always going to be there. But he saw happiness in my smile, in my life, and with the person who I am going to marry, whom I cannot say how happy I am that he got to meet. His last words were, babe, just be happy, live. I will dad. I will. But I will miss you as well.
