I've never been one to blog about personal things, but there is something therapeutic about writing. I keep a personal journal, but I haven't written about my father's passing. I've actually avoided writing in it altogether since he died. For the most part, a stranger reading my journal would only know the happy experiences of a young wife and mother (whose father is still alive by default because all record of daily life ends before his death). I think I'll just keep it that way for awhile.
My last official entry dates April 28. It reads "Today I caught Lira shoving the pizza I made for dinner down her shirt. When I tried to stop her she looked at me with a puzzled expression and said 'A pocket?!'. I also found 1 slinky, 3 Nilla wafers, and her paci in the left leg of her footy pajamas Monday morning after breakfast."
The next entry, or rather scribble, dates May 16. It was a sleepless night (most of the nights since my dad's death have been maddeningly sleepless). I woke Bob up and commented on how I had been thinking for so long, that my thoughts had become short little poems in my mind. We laughed together about it a bit (cause you've got to laugh at the crazy sometimes) and he fell back to sleep, but I was stuck awake. In a desperate effort to silence my thoughts I grabbed my journal off my nightstand and in the dark just wrote:
4 a.m.
"There is a heavier side of grieving.
When you cannot feel the kind words
or comfort.
When you count the days,
and then the weeks.
And wonder if life can ever return to its routine.
Or if night will ever again be just for sleeping,
instead of thinking."
It's not an amazing poem by any means. But it is strange for me to look at my journal and see it go from care-free to . . . that. In the turn of a page.
Tonight while driving home from dropping Mimi off at her apartment, I heard Lira say from the back of the car - completely out of the blue - "Grandpa! Where are you?!" Sometimes I wonder the same thing. Not because I wonder where he is, but why he isn't with me. And why I'll have to live the greater portion of my life without him.
Look at me at any given moment. I promise you I'm thinking of my dad, or trying not to.
2 comments:
Michelle, I am so sorry to hear you have lost your dad. I know words aren't enough when enduring something such as this, but I want you to know my heart goes out to you. Your poem is exactly how I felt after our daughter passed away. Loss of a loved one is so hard but take it one day at a time, one hour at a time.
love you. this is a really beautiful post.
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