If I take the time to think about the past year I break down. Tonight, as I was washing dishes, I remembered sitting down with my dad, sister, and stepmom and listening to him tell us that he had pancreatic cancer and 3 months to a year to live. I don't think any of us could have imagined that he would be so sick so quick or that he would be dead in a month. Looking back at the last pictures of him he is clearly so sick but it took the doctors a relatively long time to figure out what was wrong.
I spend so much of my time keeping my mind busy and surrounding myself with work and life, that I sometimes forget how hard I work to maintain emotional white noise: reading, podcasts, TV, something or anything to keep my mind from wandering down the path of the last year. My father was the first person who I lost that played a role in my day to day existence and when that day to day stuff stops for a moment I immediately fill it with something. Tonight, after tearing up for no good reason (and every good reason) at the baby shower, I was too tired to try and stop it.
My life seems at times to be filled with death, my dad, Adam, Bob from GL, and recently a colleague from grad school who's work I admired. I realize that life, any life, is filled with death, its just a matter of how close it is to your existence. This "radical" realization makes me feel like a teenager again, the excitement of figuring out an essential truth of the world and then the embarrassing crash of realizing that like duh, everyone knows that.
I remember my teenage years so clearly, obsessing over the layering of personality through clothing, the anxiety of knowing that no one had a crush on me but I had a crush on everyone, and feeling every gawky, awkward, creaking bone in my emotional skeleton. It did seem like the end of the world on a daily basis. As I tried to pull myself together at this shower I instantly recognized that "out of control, embarrassed at my own expression of emotions" feeling.
When I think about those years now, as an adult version of myself, I laugh at my silly crushes and realize how small scale those days were, and are for young people. Right now though I have a somewhat opposite relationship as I watch Adam's family go through the first months of losing him. I remember how acutely those feelings come back and punch you in the face. I don't feel wise or as if my couple months head start has given me perspective, I realize how far they have to go and wonder when this process starts to end.
They tell me that the first year is that hardest but I sense that you never escape those feelings and that grief can always creep up on you no matter how much you try to distract yourself.
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2 comments:
Thanks so much for this thoughtful post. My father-in-law died this past October six weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It seemed to take too much time to make a diagnosis and by the time it was made I barely had enough time to fully understand and he was gone. I was never that close to him for the 35 years I knew him, but during those last weeks I was drawn to him. I think he knew or could feel that as well. He was an odd guy, but those are the characters I am drawn to.
I find myself thinking about him daily. My own dad died earlier in 2008 of lung cancer. Seems like it was a year of coping with mortality. These events in our lives tend to nudge us to contemplate our own mortality and life in general. The small things fall to the wayside as we take this journey to discover just what we value in our lives.
Thanks again!
I just found your blog thanks to googling after root veggie pizza. And amazingly enough, it coincides with my own father's 85th birthday. If he had been alive, that is. And I just blogged today, about letting go of him, 9 years after his death. Dude (or, dudette?) it's a tough road to travel. But it is an inevitable part of life (unless you are an orphan with no friends). Hope it doesn't take you 9 years to let go. But own your grief, also pertaining to your friend Adam, which I am also very sad to hear. Dying should be illegal. (well, not really, but I'm sure you know what I mean)
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