Wonder

Some days I wonder how it is I make it through. How is it that learn? I feel lost in every aspect of the word. My stomach turns unable to really digest my food, and wonder how long will this last. How long will I need basic self care? I want to run, I really do want to be happy again but it feels so nearly impossible. Even talking seems like a difficult task. I'd rather walk alone right now. Day in and Day out, it's not helpful to tell me to change my perspective or thought process. Call it what you will. I call it grief, I call out it burn out, I call it my path. Perhaps you call it control or resistance. By labeling it that I then feel a sense of doing this all WRONG. I want to do right by my father. I want to heal and yet it feels as though I'm scrapping my nails down the chalk board. I sit with the world spinning around me in every color imaginable, it's overwhelming, I do not have the energy to fight the stimulus. All I can do is hope that I don't drown. It's a feeble existence I just do not know how to cope with your death, Dad. It's overwhelming and I've lost track of my heart. My mind sends me through crazy trip after crazy trip. My body is screaming for relief. And all I can do is drop to my knees and pray I'll make it without something breaking before I cross the finish line. I believe and I do not believe. I want to be understood without a word uttered from my mouth, I want to be left alone. All and all I don't understand shit. Yep that's the bottom line of my fatigue. The unknown is so scary and all I want is a chance to say goodbye to you. Sometimes when I listen to the radio I resonate with these loves songs not because there was something romantic but rather because I cared for you that much. I miss you that much. However, weird that may sound. There is something soothing about listen to a song about heartbreak. Because I'm devasted, heart broken, and dying on the inside. With no other options than to pick up my foot and take a step. I was taught never to give up, yet it amazes me how much I'm hurting. One day I will let the world know, I'll stop hiding it on the inside. Because I deserve to live in reality and to stop pretending I am okay. One day I will be however it probably won't be today.

When I think of you dad, you are the glisten of the sun on the flowers. You are the love that grows my garden, you are what keeps me going knowing that I must share what it means to be loved with those around me. Thank you for teaching and helping me grow even beyond death itself.

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

29 years ago you held me in your arms with a twinkle in your eye so I am told. I miss you terribly. I cannot believe that today is the first birthday without you. It hurts to know that you will not call, that when I see mom it will not be the same. There won't be a weird joint birthday song on my voicemail. We won't have one our beloved tasks all of it is gone. Gandoff says to Frodo "do not pity the dead, pity the living". It's so true, I'm so sure you're at peace. You've told me. And I cannot imagine another way and yet I sit here wondering how to keep living without you. It's seem so ridiculous but I loved you so dad. I looked up to you in so many ways. And without you today it just creates a stronger reality. All I can do is miss my father. But I will always be your little girl. I feel so blessed to have a dad who loved as much you did. In a way that cannot be written or expressed in words. It's a special feeling when a father loves a daughter in this way. I sit wondering in what ways life will change over the next year. I wonder how my relationships with mom and kyle will change. How much stronger I will become. Today in honor of you I want you to know how much I love you. That I'm so blessed that you and mom created me. I feel blessed with life however much adversity I've had to face. I smile at the way you've defended me over the years. The patience you constantly showed to me and my sensitivities. I could ALWAYS count on you to listen, though at times absent and judgmental. I'm deeply honored you changed. I wish today of all days I could tell you all this and yet all I can do put it out there and maybe you'll hear it. Perhaps heaven has internet now. :) Have you seen what I've accomplished? I got invited to join the Golden Key Honor Society, held a 3.7 even after your death, I went back to school despite everything, I held the family together best that I could. And I'm still going though it's frighteningly hard I am doing it. I think of you often. I think often that a lot of what I do is for you. I beginning to find my way back to doing this for me and at times just in honor of your life. It's just so hard to imagine celebrating today without. How can I not also celebrate your life as you did give me life? I must. I must for me, for you, for our family. Maybe it sounds crooked and odd. Well we all know I'm a little off. Dad thank you for helping give me life. For teaching as much as you could before you had to leave. Thank you for being an amazing dad in the end. I love you so much.

Missing you.
Your little dee dee girl.

A good cry

A good cry is hard to come by. Now that it's here, all I feel is anger. I'm beyond angry that other people get sympathies for a lost grandparent. I sit and wonder why. Yet it is my own grief that is asking that question. It is my own anger that blocks my ability to have compassion. And it is my grief that I have to deal with. And it is the loneliest condition i've ever faced. There is NO ONE that can make this better. There is no one who can truly comfort me. And yet that is all I want, I want someone to tell me it's okay you'll make it through this. Though if you were to tell me I'm not sure I would believe you. When I feel the pain is like a deep well of every emotion you can imagine overflowing. Uncontainable and a gnawing pain, a sickness. It feels horrible. I don't want to grieve I want my father back. That's what I want. You want to know what I want for my birthday I want my father back. I want to be able to see him one more time, just have one more conversation. And because I can't have that, because he's dead and I don't know how to bring him back. Instead I'm left living in a world that I want to constantly escape from, that there is no remedy for. There is no comfort. And I'm forced to do it on my own. For no one truly understands the nightmare. No one truly understands that every day I relive that day. I hear my mother's voice, I hear my brother's voice. I hear dear friends shocked reactions that didn't register. I remember the plane ride and the moment the tears began to flow. It is a nightmare every day. I don't know how to come to terms with something this big. How can you ever? How can you move on with your life? It's sheer willpower that I'm living my life.
Had an experience in class last week... a woman I barely know said "How are you still doing this program?" I looked at her and quite frankly I had no answer. I don't know. But quite frankly I'm not sure how much longer I can do it. I feel like my whole world is falling to pieces around me. Electronics being broken only be my lack of ability to multitask. Everything feels like it's going to explode. I'm so angry I don't even know where to start. I think it's sheer fucking willpower that I'm able to keep on trucking. But I'm not sure I want to anymore. I want to crawl under the covers and sleep and cry for a week or more like a year. And perhaps after that I'd feel as though I could face the world. But I don't have that I have tonight to vent to the interweb space of the world. And world I am fucking angry that the universe took my dad away. He was my everything. My world. He was my hero. And damn it I want to go skiing with him. I want him to call me. And I'm sorry if I just have no compassion if your grandparents die, but I don't. I don't care, not in the sense that I have no heart. I do not have the capacity to care if you lost someone in the natural cycle of life. Take a minute and sit in my shoes, I'll tell you, you won't to for long. If you sit in them then tell me it's not okay for me to be angry, and not care. Perhaps actually for me in this moment it's totally okay. But really I'm not just pissed my dad is gone and that I have to keep going. That world goes on like everything is okay. Well I am not. And yet my willpower is so strong that I'm able to keep trucking through but I think I need more spontaneous cries to let all this steam out it's killing me.

Remberance of 9/11

It strikes me with such sadness to listen to the voices of 9/11. In some ways it feels as if I can relate so more deeply to their experience even if my father wasn't killed by a building that someone crashed a plane to. But I remember ALL my thoughts and actions both the day 9/11 happened and the day my father died. It has such an impact, it's written across everything I do. One woman said "You do not recover from it you heal, but you remember always, there is always a void". This is difficult to come to grips with as I desperately want to heal, I want to recover, I want my life. But I will never be able to fill the void, I will become more comfortable with it over time. There is no replacing the man who raised me, who stood by me always when milestones occur. Only my father can walk me down the aisle. Only my father could do so many things. And it is in that, that causes me to feel as though life has ended. In the scariest way I fear returning to a place of deep darkness, of feeling the depth of this sorrow. And I truly don't think anyone can fully understand that. Saying I'm doing great is so superficial to me. I won't be doing great for a long time. And all I can sit with is today is wow, I called him that day. I don't remember what he said, but I remember it was comforting. I remember sitting on the stairs in the dorm hallway. The first day of classes. I called my parents it would have never occurred to me the possibility that 10 years later he would gone. Life is so short, I just haven't figured out how to let go. How do I live his legacy? How do I now comfort people in tragedy? How do I share his love when it hurts so much to acknowledge it. One day Dad, the light is going to shine through the deep darkness your passing has left. Perhaps it already is and I just can't find it today. Love you always.

The Fog

There are moments where the world spins, I'm on autopilot. Nothing feels real. It's as if everything around me disappears I concentrate only on the next step. Where do I put my right foot. There are so many times where your death seems to disappear into the depths of life. All that I'm left with is pure exhaustion. Fatigue that cannot be healed with enough sleep, cannot be healed with eating right, only time eases the difficulty. The fog shadows all my awareness. I can feel the pull of my heart. The ache for my father. Everyday at work I look at him and think God I miss my father. How lucky these children are they still have their's. And yet it's only in the background everything is in the background. The trials in relationship pull on my body like a cold that won't go away. It's as if I just can't find ease, grace, a flow with the grief. Some say I'm doing remarkably well. I say it looks good. That perhaps I'm not doing nearly as well as it seems. Maybe I'm selling myself short. It's difficult for me to tell when I can't seem to even grasp how I feel. Because all I feel is tired. So tired that I almost want to give up. I hate to say it because I've worked so hard to have hope. To have love, to have friendship. But each day it seems I struggle to believe that it is there. To believe that people care enough about me that I will still be able to float through this. All I'd like is for you to listen, to take some responsibility. Yet I'm so tired of asking. I'm so tired of life. It's exhausting chasing people who run the other way. What is the right thing?
I'm too tired to know. Dad do you see how tired I am? I pray that you're near. When I'm this tired, it's as if I"m floating through space without you. Though I wish I could see you I know when the fog lifts you'll return to tell me you're so proud. That you love me, that I am still your little girl.
At times I sit wondering, wondering the differences in people. How some of us can stand so TALL in the face of udder tradegy and others crumble in fear. What would happen if we all surrender into love and friendship. Took responsibility for our lives. I'd like to think I wouldn't feel so alone. I'd like to think maybe this fog wouldn't be so thick. That maybe it would be more like oil than molasses.

Deathly Anger

It strikes me as a such a predicament I am in. We are human and therefore have relationships. What I want seems so far out of my reach and yet it sits right in my palm. I have the power of choice. I have the power of perspective. It's nights like these where I wonder where my hope lies. The anger overwhelms every pore of my body. I scream, I kick, I cry because the world no longer makes sense. Without my father it seems cruel and unusual. It seems foreign. My compassion for others is lessened and my anger is exploding from the inside out. Doing this on my own seems nearly impossible. I wish I could sit across from my dearest friends and tell them. Share with them my heart, but I fear I do not even understand what it is telling me. I feel closed off from myself. I feel closed to the world. The world took my father away without a minute to say goodbye. Why should I bend? Why should I let go of my anger? Because I want to be whole. I want to learn how to give what I desire from others to myself. But this with the depth of my pain feels nearly impossible. I see my need to tell someone I'm exploding, imploding. It relieves some pressure. A response is not necessary. Just listen, Just see me for all that I am.

Without you Dad. I feel as though I've lost everything. I've lost mom, I've lost my sense of self, I've lost my heart, I've lost my ability to have loving confrontations, I've lost all that I thought I had found. It is the most rewarding and painful journey I have ever embarked upon. I desperately grabbing at straws. Because Dad I miss you. You were my rock. "A child is not fully born until a parent dies". This strikes me deeply as the nut of the journey. How will I be fully born into the world? My father held so much that fear encases me as I face his death. I'm met with cultural fear of death, cultural avoidance. I have friends who do not realize this is most likely why they don't call. This is the world tells me to stop crying. That I should be over it. But I am not. My father was a huge part of my life. Well world. I'm pissed. And somehow I am going to find a way for this to change. I will not avoid it. I will talk about it in the most public places. I will somehow learn to be one with my heart once again. One day you will see that I will be reborn through death.

Remembering You

Dear Dad,

It's an odd feeling knowing that you are no longer here. Knowing that I have lost a great man in my life. At times all I can do is stare into the beyond with no words, no expression, just emptiness. It fills me. I miss in a way I cannot describe. I'm screaming from the inside out. And yet it is the deepest loneliness I've ever experienced. It does not seem to matter how much love other people send my way. Without you life is difficult, life has lost meaning. Tragedy has changed me, Dad. I'm not your little girl anymore, I've been touched by your death. It scares me more than I'd like to admit. You were not old and decrepit. You were young and healthy. You were my angel. You are my angel. But it's nights like tonight where I look at the moon and the stars and I remember you. I remember watching them with you. I remember finding saturn's rings. I remember your laugh, your smile, your way being. And so desperately wish I could find a way there. How do we live our parent's legacies? How do we carry on when we've been touched by something the world pretends doesn't exists. I'm trying dad, for you I keep going. Knowing you are walking with me. Knowing you are now my guide. But I do not know how to talk to mom anymore. I wish I could talk to you, you'd explain to me a way to approach it. All of this is lost in the sea of grief. I stand alone watching the world pass by me and all that I can do is watch. I just never imagined this possibility. There is so much I wish I could say to you. I want my last goodbye. I want to hear your voice telling me it will be okay. I look into your eyes and I remember the love, I remember how you'd want me to live. Then I take a deep breath for there is nothing else to be done. I take in your love and begin to forge a path back to my own heart so that I may transform your love into my own. I miss you dad.

Love your little Dee Dee Girl.