It’s been four months and I have a lot of scrambled thoughts and feelings that are hard to form into words and sentences.
It’s still difficult for me to get the last few weeks of his life off my mind. He appears sick in my dreams and sometimes even frail and close to death like his last few days. Those are nightmares. I am afraid that I’ll never forget the vivid moments when his body was quickly failing. I wish I could recall vivid moments that were good. But when I try to think of a specific moment, I can’t. I feel like my memory has failed me when I need it the most. I’m afraid that someday, 10 or 20 years from now, my past will seem so distant. My short time (18 years) with my healthy Dad will seem like so long ago … what will I be able to remember?
I miss my Dad and my Mom. I had no idea that I would lose my Mom too. I miss our family. I feel like I don’t belong here anymore. I feel like someday I won’t want to come back here. My own family that I will have someday will be so important to me, I already know.
I feel very alone. Without a sense of family, without friends close-by. Without my Dad, one of my very favorites.
Life in general feels so weird. I can’t really explain it, but my view on it is very strange right now. I don’t understand life and the things in it. I feel distant. Sometimes I’m too hard on myself and then realize that’s probably normal to feel this way right now. But I don’t like it. Not at all. I wonder when and if I’ll ever feel normal again. I am easily depressed thinking about life.
I’m really excited for Christmas, but I’m afraid I will be disappointed. It won’t be Christmas like I know it.
Starting next week, contractors will be finishing our basement that he had to leave half-completed. Of course, they won’t put in the elevator that he had designed and planned. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Today I transferred a few things from his work computer to an external hard drive and my Mom returned it to Brewer. There were unfinished to-do lists that will never be touched by him again.
My heart is heavy. I miss my Dad, I miss my life, I miss my former self. I haven’t felt like my true self since before he was diagnosed, 2007.
Did this really happen to me?
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