Untethered

Ironically, my last post was about Anna’s taking many pictures of me due to her fear that I would die and that she wouldn’t be able to cope with it.  As I wrote that post, I could not have even imagined that, just over a month later, I would be the one losing a parent.

Two weeks after that post appeared, I got the terrible news that my father, seemingly out of the blue, had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, Stage IV, which had metastasized to his liver and lungs.  I felt a palpable shift in my universe. I just couldn’t believe it.  He was only 65.  He was fit and healthy and wasn't a smoker and enjoyed exercising and had lots of energy. How could this be??

Things got worse over the next few days as we learned how extensive the illness was and as I researched the nightmare that is pancreatic cancer.  Of course, all cancer is terrible, but at least there are treatment options with many types of cancer.  Sometimes, treatment works and puts people into remission.  Sometimes it just buys time.  But either way, there is often something that people can hold onto that provides even just a little hope.

With pancreatic cancer…not so much.  It’s usually a silent killer – typically, by the time you know you have it, you’ve run out of time for any effective treatment. 

Sadly, that was the case with my dad.

Dad and me, June 8, 2014

He died on June 24, 2014.  Less than a month after his diagnosis.

My world came to a grinding halt.

As  I sat in his hospital room – thankfully having arrived in time to see him and tell him I love him before he slipped away – I remembered the now-eerie conversation I’d recently had with Anna about my own death someday.  I watched this happy-go-lucky, energetic, still-young man waste away before my eyes and I thought about the things I’d said to her.  That I’d always be with her, one way or another.  That we don’t get to choose when we go.  That we will always have the love and memories in our hearts.

July 2004

And those things are still true.  It’s just that they weren’t much of a comfort to me at that particular moment.  I’d never been with anyone while they died before. And to have it be someone I loved so much….well, there are no words for that.

No matter what the relationship is like, no matter how old you are…..losing a parent is just unreal.  Our parents are the people that loved us from the start.  The people who have been the true constants in our lives.  The people that, no matter how far away you live, no matter what your differences or similarities may be, are always there for you to the greatest extent they can be. And when one of them dies….your universe feels different somehow.

I went through the motions of life with my family over the next few days in a haze.   I felt disconnected from reality.  Spending time with my brother and his family.  Helping mom make the funeral arrangements.  Telling my office I’d be gone longer than planned.  All of this felt like it shouldn’t be me.  That I shouldn’t be doing these things. That they should be done by someone else. I felt like someone else. I felt like I was watching someone else’s life. 

If only.

Instead, here I was, trying to make sense of it all.  Floating, untethered, searching for - but not finding - familiar ground.

Getting through the ceremonial goodbye is really hard. But then the visitors return to their daily routines, the calls lessen, all the delicious food people bring you out of nowhere is eaten and the house feels empty.  And you’re left with thoughts that are even tougher to bear.  I had just received my birthday card from my parents two weeks before this – the last one my dad would sign.  Just over a week before he died, my dad experienced what would turn out to be his last Father’s Day (to say “celebrated” would be quite a stretch, being hospitalized and all). Although we didn't know it then, our awesome visit with my family in February would be Anna’s last time with her granddad.

I was awfully thankful for that visit.

Anna and Granddad being silly, February 2014

When I got home, though, the thoughts continued. I was cutting up a rotisserie chicken I’d picked up for dinner one night and suddenly I wondered who would carve the turkey at the first Thanksgiving without Dad. Because of work and the distance between my home and my hometown – and the fact that the day before is the worst travel day of the year –  I didn’t get to be there for Thanksgiving a lot.  But I love Thanksgiving. It made me wish I had been able to fly back at least once for Thanksgiving in the last few years.

I’m not sure how long these thoughts will continue to pop in my head.  I’m sure they will come around on the special occasions that seem a bit less special now –like holidays and birthdays.  And as I learned from the death of my best friend a few years before (thanks again, cancer), grief is unpredictable.  It is random.  It comes out of nowhere.  Like this morning, randomly crying in the car on the way to work. Feeling blindsided when you're just trying to have a normal day.  Of course, some days are normal. Some are great. But some are lousy.

All I know is I have to get it out somehow. The most important person for me to focus on through all of this has been my mom.  It is her loss of her lifelong companion, her soul mate, that is the most difficult to bear.  But as I came home and went back to work and struggled to put one foot in front of the other, to return to some semblance of a routine, I realized that things didn’t feel quite the same for me either.

My mind is generally too busy to process grief and stress, between work and taking care of my child and my house and my daily affairs.  So instead, my body is doing that for me, rebelling against me, robbing me of sleep and refusing to let me settle down at night. I’m working on that, but there are also some things you can’t get around – you just have to go through them.  I think this is one of those things.

Dad & me, college graduation weekend, May 1999

I don’t know what the moral of this story is.  For me, perhaps it’s just the realization that, even though I’m 37 and have a daughter of my own, there are times when I still need my mom and dad. And I will never hear his laughter again, his silly jokes, his endless conversation about all sorts of things.  They were part of my lifeline, even after all these years.

I did not want to be untethered.