the good things...

picking apples with the children

spending the day with our family

seeing a great play with my husband

eating brownies on the deck

Tomorrow is his birthday.... he would have been 62....

This is not here.... and this is not a rant...

And just for the record.. I hate rants.. (even though I rant all the time)...

I think them ridiculous and childish and annoying but I have a lot to rant about and keeping it bottled up inside of me is giving me a stomach ache, so I need to spew before it turns to cancer and fucking kills me, although at the moment that is a tempting prospect...... well not really..

because it is cancer I hate..

and not that anyone in this world loves cancer.. but I hate everything to do with cancer and cancer wards.... I hate the smell of the cancer ward and those ridiculous gowns you have to put on and pull off every time you leave the room and come back in.. which is constantly.. I hate the way the treatment kills your dignity and hopefully the shit that is killing you along with every other fucking living thing in your body.. Lest not forget the way it robs you of your precious hair.

It had to take his hair... What? Was it too beautiful for this world?? The universe was jealous that his hair was thick and luscious and beautiful.. it had to take it little by little.. Falling all over his pillow and onto the floor. How dare they let it touch the floor! Imbeciles. They couldn't take it all, though.. nope... he died with more hair on his head than many a living man is sporting now.... so fuck off, chemotherapy.

And the promises... of how this will work and how this will help. Lies.. I know they don't want you to lose hope, but do not tell a dying man he is not dying. Let him decide how he wants to leave this earth and what he wants to say on his way out. Don't make him think he is crazy for asking the question. Be a man, doctor, look him in they eye and tell him that YES he is dying.. And YES that is why his family is around him, and YES the priest has been called, and YES she is flying in from California, and YES I fucked up when I urged you to try this treatment and I'm sorry, I tried.

You can't get a straight answer in a hospital... not to your face. They tell you one thing and discuss the truth around the coffee pot.

So I am pissed.

would have

If you would have asked why I was home so early, I would have told you that I couldn't sit in yoga, even for a minute. That I couldn't listen to my breathing or find a comfortable position or deal with the fact that I could see my reflection in the glass window across from my mat.

I would have told you that I was having an anxiety attack, and had to get the hell home. That I got up and left as quickly as I could, alarming the instructor who followed me outside to make sure I was okay.

Which I wasn't....

You would have known all this when I walked in the door and called to you and you said "WHAT!?' and my name with so much disdain and annoyance.

Soccer mom from HELL....

That is what I was today... MOM-ZILLA GRRRRRRR......

The lil' guy plays soccer.. It is the cutest thing and the kids have such a blast.

We were enjoying the game when one mother on our team bends down and starts talking to my older son, Jay. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what she was saying to him. So I walked over and I hear her interrogating him about something that happened on the school bus last week. I interrupt her, and ask her what this was all about and she said she heard my son pulled another kid's jacket on the bus, a first grader. Now no one called me about it or even mentioned it to me, so I had no idea what she was talking about.

I got pissed... PISSED...

"Please don't talk directly to my son about anything. I am his mother. If he did something wrong or there is a problem, then please speak to me, not him."

Then she went on about how she didn't mean to be disrespectful, and that she was friendly with my son (since she sees him at daycare in the afternoon) and how she wasn't reprimanding him...

WHAT?

"Oh. No. You are not my son's friend. He is 9. He doesn't have adult friends. I have boundaries with my children. I do not purport to be their friend. I appreciate your input as a member of our community, but it is not appropriate to speak to my son. I have a problem with that, and a major problem with the fact that you don't understand why that is a problem."

Is she kidding me? I then stood between her and my son to ensure she would no longer speak to him and so that she would keep her fucking mouth shut. After a bit, my friend asked me what was going on. I told her briefly and she said that her kid doesn't even go to my son's school, so how would she know what was going on?

WHAT?

I go back over to this woman after the game, and said: "I just want to make sure that you and I are clear about your not talking to my son. And by the way, our kids don't go to school together, so what gives you the right to address an issue your son couldn't have even been a part of or possibly witnessed?"

"Come over here, I'll explain.."

"I'm right here. Talk to me right here."

Where did she want to go?

I never heard someone talk her way in and out of so many knots. I was actually enjoying her squirming.

The conversation ended with my telling her, everything is fine between us, and this "miscommunication" has been resolved. I really didn't have the energy to continue.

Oh.. I asked Jay about what she was talking about and he had no idea. Mind you, he has been sitting in the front of the bus behind the bus driver since the beginning of the year because of his sprained ankle, so I double anything happened at all...


Don't mess with the soccer mom from Hell.....ugh.

Today is not okay...

and so it goes.

Today is ok

There really is no linear path with grieving. This is something I know academically, and have told people with whom I am working, but now I really understand it from the inside. My father isn't the first person I have lost in my life, and not even the closest emotionally, but it is a much different kind of loss with him.

I feel so altered. He was such a strong and active part of who I am internally and in my world and now that he is gone there is a gaping hole beckoning to be filled or something. I looked to him for clues about myself. He was my connection to my past present and future for my sons as well.

"I was a skinny kid like your little guy and could eat and eat all day long." He would say.

Really? So that is where he gets that from! Or when he told me he stuttered until he was 13 like Jay does which offered so much insight and comfort about the situation.

It's these strands of personal history and connections between us that have been severed that hurts as well. Now we will have to keep the stories we have alive and look for clues in those among ourselves. And that too is an interesting thing. We have been sharing stories, and so much truth has been pouring out for all. Its almost a purging of any doubt or the answering of questions whose time has come.

It's emotionally draining trying to make sense of things, and reconfigure. But we are doing it, one day at a time and together.

Today is okay....

:)

quiet...

I feel like I've lost my voice here. The place where I found my voice. I am too fragmented. I need to start putting all these pieces back together. To reconstruct.

That is why it is so quiet here.

The only thoughts running through my head are thoughts of him. His face, his voice, his smell. I am clinging to these things in an effort to perhaps bring him back, or to not forget him. To keep him alive in some small way.

I am just heartbroken.

I have my moments....

Like on the way home from exercise class.

It just hits.. and hard. I try to pretend he is home and we are going about our lives as we do, or as we did. Me here, and him there. Calling each other occasionally to update one another on our lives.

I'm glad that we had that day together and we talked. There was so much more I wanted to say. So much more I should have said over the years. Now I will say them in my prayers and hope he hears me. I'm sure he will.

But oh... when it hits.... ugh.

i need to start feeling better....

We made it through the viewing and the funeral.... I even spoke... maybe later I will share with you what I said. I have cried and cried and cried.. and drank and drank.... and cried... and grieved... and I am still in the throws of it all... but I need to start feeling better. I need to start building back the skin, I'm tired of being so raw...

Thank you for all your kind words and emails... I truly appreciate your words...

I'm finding my way back. I always do.

I love you always...

and will miss you forever, Dad...