on

monday, march 25 i drove to my parent’s house. i was at work when the hospice nurse called. she said “we’ve made a decline. he’s started requiring oxygen. i let your mom know but i also wanted to let you know that i think it’s time.” my cousin was at home with my mom at the time and i told b. he drove me and stayed the night with me. he left for work the next morning on a tuesday and that morning i laid in my childhood bed with this weird time warp sensation where i lay in a space where things were so different fifteen years ago. i could have never guessed any of these events in my life. as i lay there i felt all of the beautiful, positive, happy things in that time frame that led me to here and i felt love and gratitude and i remember thinking i was thankful for feeling that love and gratitude because four days prior i had been a wreck. in shambles. and i thought that was the biggest thing and it wasn’t. now is. my dad passed away on wednesday, march 27 at eight am. exactly eight in the morning. i typed a text to my sisters at 7:59 am with shaky fingers and the weirdest fucking feeling i have ever felt in my entire life that i can feel all over again as i write this. and at 8:00 am i sent the text and looked up and he let out his last breath. my mom was there and i can still hear her call his name and then she looked up at me and we looked at each other with the biggest form of sadness we have ever simultaneously shared. i think he was comfortable. i think he was ready. those ‘i thinks’ are the ones that get me because all i have is this little odd feeling from time to time where i swear it’s him telling me it’s okay but even that is an ‘i think he’s telling me he’s okay’ and let me tell you the ‘i thinks’ can drive a person mad. since then i have undone myself over and over and i still cannot figure out things like who I am now and what is i that i fucking want. well i can tell you what i want but it’s unattainable. it’s no more and when i think of it like that it is a gut wrenching pain.  and then there’s this other feeling of it’s just everything that i thought mattered, doesn’t. not one thing. and i don’t say this in a hopeless manner. i just say this in a dumbfounded way as if to say “where do i go from here?” how am i still here and how am i still me without him? and i absolutely cannot believe this is what other people have gone through/are going through/will go through. anyways bear with me. this blog has really allowed me to find other parts of myself. obviously, never this fucking serious. i see that now. but nonetheless, it has helped and so this blog just got real sad and this is what i’m exploring next – a life without my father.

l, js