All The Things That Happen

It's like I can't remember the last few years.

When did I have my surgeries?

When did my dad die?

When did I travel?

The timing seems like it doesn't add up somehow and every single time I look back I wonder, is this a strange side effect of grief? Or depression? Is this still a neurological side effect of hemiplegic attacks? A cognitive blur or maybe my ADHD? An issue with my memory that just needs me to focus more? All of the above? I am usually so good with timelines, but the last few years seem actually unbelievable. Nothing flows smoothly. Everything skips like an unlikely stone on the surface of patchwork memories.

It's been over 2 years since my dad died. I have to check to make sure that it was 2023 that he passed. I still can't believe it.

When I check that date even today, I remember the first time he told me he had pancreatic cancer. I feel frozen just like I did then. Except then I did a deep dive into every medical white paper to try and find a good number. One that would tell me how long I could keep him. One that would give me the most hope but also wouldn't pull punches with me. I needed to know what to expect but I wanted my dad to live forever. I needed to know some magic truth.

Now I just sit and breathe deeply, half out of my body waiting for the thought to pass. If I listen, part of me is saying it's a joke. Another part is saying I should come back to reality now and keep breathing. "In for four...hold for four...out for four... hold for four......" That part of me, equipped with her mindfulness, her EFT tapping, and her affirmations, is still light-headed. Still trying to parent the other two thirds of me; the last third being a childish puddle of emotion. She of course only comes out when the kids are asleep. Or when she is cornered, or prodded, or when the siege is lost and the walls have absolutely crumbled.

That's how we've gone to me being totally fine one minute, organizing the family plans, making sure everything is running smoothly, finances paid, meals are planned, extracurriculars are all lined up... to the last vestige of motherhood armour falling away. All of a sudden I have not moved for days, energy plummeting, voice squashed by nostalgic imprinting. To me it always seems shocking but my husband just holds me on queue every time as I scream into a pillow, "Daddy, where did you go? I don't understand where he went? Where is he? He was just here..."

Every single time this happens. And I realize all over, I've lost my dad. I've lost him. He's gone.

When I was a little girl, I promised myself to be such an adult; envisioned such a togetherness of accomplishing and adventuring and 'proud of you' and 'love you' moments. And yes, those projections of perfection I've gone to therapy for because no family can live up to that anywhere but in their dreams. But a funny thing happens when we lose someone we love. Everything becomes a dream. It all becomes confused. It swirls around and the life you knew and the one you promised and wished for all become shattered and swished around, and you feel gutted and estranged from yourself and your fondest memories of your family. You try so hard to reclaim the most simple memory and nothing feels right.

The best memories become tinged with grief. The happiest moments bring you to a full stop, face hardened into blank stone. Life's delight lacks a rudder. You don't know why you're doing what you're doing. You are a fully grown adult and you had a path and it was good. But you'll never hear him say he's proud of you, or that he loves you. You'll also never hear him not say it, having the simple comfort that he is still there to say it. You'll never argue. You'll never push against his words. You'll never know the path you're on is definitively yours because the fight lasted for weeks and the silence roared. You'll never hear the same anecdote over the years, hitting different this time because your own experience offered it a place of gentler reflection.

These moments and non-moments of existence. These things that happen so fast. All the things that happen. These moments between breaths.

That's where my dad is. And when I let myself stop being a mom, and corporate exec, and an achiever, and the family planner, and 'on top of it', that's where I go too.

That's where I feel it all. The memories. The timelessness. The then and the now. And the grieving isn't over, it keeps going. And it keeps breathing with me. It gets lighter some days and I smile. I look to my children, I cherish how little I know about life. Others, the calendar gets hard to read again and the timelines blur. I know the tears are coming. I know I will forever be searching for where he went.

But I'll find a new path slowly; right the rudder. I will stop pushing against the current. It will come to me eventually that it's ok to let go and and be carried for a while. That is good enough and somewhere, in between everything and nothing at all, I believe he is smiling.