Each year this day comes one of the first things I tell myself is next year things will not hurt as much. Time heals all wounds is the saying right? Ha! Now that seems to be a joke on us! Sorry, I'm a bit angry or maybe it's frustrated. This month didn't sneak up on me like they have the last couple years. In fact it's been building since the end of March. The thoughts of the days in the hospital with my dad so vivid I can hear everything all over again.
Our son's soccer started again this year around that time at the local ice arena. On April 6, 2008 while we were there for soccer I received the call that would be the beginning of the end. Perhaps being there early this month watching his team do drills triggered something deeper than I have allowed myself to face. Needless to say, I am struggling more this year then I think I have since 2008.
That day just a few short weeks ago a moment was lost with the realization of that fateful day four years ago; life stopped, everything went silent around me, and all the days spent in hospital with my father came crashing down on me like someone had dropped a huge boulder on top of me. I have been in convulsive tears many times this month, his laughter ringing in my head, the last hug I got from him, the words, 'Where's Bubs' when I would be silently sitting next to his hospital bed trying to make myself believe that he was just sick and would go home soon.
I'm angry for so many reasons, most importantly because I can't control these emotions! I'm frustrated because fighting them is like fighting a rubber band--I think I have a grasp on them and suddenly my eyes will well up instantly. Over the last week I've barely slept, I've barely eaten, and have curled up inside of myself just like I did after he died. Why? It's been four years?
April is always an awful month now. He stayed with us over Christmas and New Years, got through his birthday and past Easter...the norm in our family is someone dies right around Christmas. Not him...perhaps it was his will that helped him to get through them because he knew the pain around the holidays. Funny how we rationalize things to fit the perfect image that helps us believe we can in fact control things. Many times I watched my father grieve the loss of a family member around Christmas--he would become very silent; his jolly spirit would be nowhere and he would just stare. Perhaps that is where I get it from...that dislocation from reality..a way to cope.
All I know right now is that I am a wreck of gigantic proportions. That tears have been coming and going since I got home from our sons soccer last night; I slept awful, woke at around 4:20 this morning to the memory of me standing at his feet at that same time four years ago, hanging on to his right foot, tears streaming down my face as nearly my entire family surrounded him and said the rosary. I remember thinking that I needed to stop showing him my raw pain...I knew what was happening but didn't want him to know I knew but I couldn't hide it..he saw my pain, he couldn't speak anymore, but then at the same time I wasn't even sure he was even able to recognize any of us. I so badly wanted to jump on the hospital bed and shake up his jolly..make him say something to egg me on...I so badly wanted to see my dad one last time.
And now four years later I want it all back...I hear his laughter ringing in my head just like I spoke with him yesterday. Only it's just an echo now. I just don't know why it's been so difficult this year. I am able to cope any other month--think about him often and chuckle about this or that. But this month seems to get harder each year than easier. Perhaps it's fear that I will forget him or such a deep loss that it will always be this way, I don't know.
I've been withdrawn, punchy, quit school for awhile, and am just walking around in the same kind of fog I was four years ago. Yeah, I quit school to find a job because this economy sucks but another reason was because the stress....the confusion and frustration with my inability to push this back and move on like I normally would. Usually on the anniversary I sob one time and then it eases..not this time. I've sobbed a couple times already in the last 24-hours and it's still right in my throat. I've cried at least once a day; lost my ability to breathe normally on some days because it hits me so hard. And when asked how I'm doing with it my immediate response is 'fine'. Exuding strength...that was one of my father's biggest assets and something I watched closely..I wanted to be just like him. He laughed a lot, he had a lot of fun with is own wit and charm and loved to make people laugh. I was always so proud when I could make HIM laugh because I knew I was getting it.
Yeah, I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm not fine..that I am really looking forward to the 24th of this month coming and going so I can put these feelings to rest for awhile....April is just not a good month. May is just around the corner and maybe then I can resume life as I know it now without him and find that peace that I have learned to cling to. Until then, forgive me for my post, forgive me for the rain if it should fall, forgive me for being a wreck. I really think I need to go fishing or something!
Miss you so much Dad!
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