Today is April 8th.
Today is marks the point, exactly three quarters of of my life ago. The day my dad died.
I was sitting on the rocking chair, the chair I still have today. It used to face the front door. I was sat there when my mum walked in and told me the news.
He’d been in and out of hospital for almost a year. This was one of those few times I’d waited at home when she went to see him. Usually I’d be farmed out to someone else’s house, a friends or neighbour. Maybe this time there wasn’t time to make arrangements, I don’t remember. I know she got there too late. I guess the hospital had called and she’d had to rush out.
I was sat facing the front door waiting for her to get back.
I knew from her face. Hot tears ran instinctually. Incessantly.
I kept thinking over, I don’t understand. How can a person stop being? I don’t understand.
She told me not to be sad. He had been so ill. To want him to carry on living was to want him to go on suffering. It was a release. A great release. He was in a better place now.
Such an overwhelm. Yes, he wasn’t ill now. And he wasn’t here. And he wasn’t angry and shouting and so full of fury. He wasn’t drunk and dangerous. He wasn’t threatening, he wasn’t all the excuses why. All the reasons. He wasn’t my dad. He just wasn’t.
He wasn’t here. And he wasn’t coming back.
And I didn’t understand how someone could just stop being. Stop being at all, forever. How does this happen?
I still don’t know.
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This post touched me, I’m sending you love my friend ❤
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Thank you my friend. X
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Your writing is very powerful and evocative. It doesn’t matter how long ago a loss occurred, those special dates make the raw grief well back up inside us. I hope the day passes gently for you.
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So true. Years go by but a memory can still pull the carpet out from under your feet. Thank you for your kind words. X
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Such a lot mixed up in your memories, eph. Strings and strands, leaves and loops. A complex work in progress, as I think it is for many of us. The answers? It is so strange how life can change completely within even a few hours. But somehow it goes on just the same for the rest of the world. Or seems to. I hope you managed to find some colour at your fingertips. Best wishes, Philippa
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thank you sweets, you describe it so well. Yes, there’s always color. I fell down a rabbit hole for an hour or some last week; I was a little girl, I sobbed hard again, and then I bobbed back up again. I floated back to now. My now is a happy space, and that’s all there really is.
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