Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2014 was the worst yet. First one without Dad. First one without R. So much drama from Mom that I barely had a chance to even think about Dad & R...until I saw R's room, which was a trash depository. I thought that's where he was found, but it turns out he was in the bed in Mom's room that she's never used. It's been a month and a half and we still don't have a death certificate. I find that odd. Apparently autopsies can take up to 8 months too. I can't believe my beloved brother has been dead for a month and a half and my beloved father has been gone four months. They're gone and they're never coming back. According to the Grateful Dead, there's nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile...but I can't. I try hard to act like I'm all good, but inside I'm rotting away. Especially after the debacle of this past weekend. The remainder of my family went to Mom's specifically to help her clean the squalor in her house so she can get rid of it and move into a condo or retirement community. She was a giant pain in the ass about what we could throw away, what to keep, what to donate, and she wanted to have an estate sale to try and make money off of stuff from the 1970s. There was still a set of 1973 encyclopedias we found in the garage. Come on! She had bills or receipts from 1983. I told her she needed to get a shredder for all that stuff and she said, "I'll just do it at Mxxxx's house." I told her she couldn't just take boxes full of papers and ruin someone's shredder because she didn't feel like buying one. She just doesn't get it. I don't get how she doesn't get it, but I worry all the time about becoming like her...Ugh. I thought I was in a writing mood, but all this stuff just makes me sad and I don't need the tears to start. Hasta luego.

For Randee

The tears roll down my face
piercing like shards of glass
I will never hear your infectious laughter
nor see that brilliant smile again.

I cannot face this burning loss
not so soon
not so soon
Things were looking up for you
Finally.

I prayed over and over
for years and years
that you would be healed,
that God would slay your demons
and give you the peace on this earth
that you so deserved.

Your heart and soul loomed large
willing to help anyone when you could
which towards the end grew less and less
as your demons grew by the legions.

They gnawed and gnashed at your body
ripping your heart to shreds
each tear melting your skin
until you were no more.

People say you're in a better place now
no more suffering, no more gnawing.
All I know is that my prayers didn't work
the way I wanted them to.

God took you,
seemingly without a chance
for happiness on earth.
But now you're with Dad
and all your friends who passed before you,
cracking jokes and laughing your infectious laugh
once again.

Goodbye my beloved brother,
Goodbye.
I will never stop loving you
never stop crying for you
never stop wondering what you could've become.
Never stop wishing I had the chance
to say goodbye to your sweet face
or hear you laugh one more time.

I never knew

I never knew how badly heartbreak could feel. Oh, I've had my set of heartbreaks and I never thought the first one could be topped....But this one is obviously different from an 18-year-old getting dumped by a guy she thought she loved. THIS, this, is true heartbreak. And I know I'll have to go through it several more times and that terrifies me. Yeah, people tell me I'm stronger than I think, but I don't necessarily believe them - even if included in that group is a counseling pastor and a therapist and my husband and my best friend for years and years.

I shed so many tears today, I must be drinking a gallon of water to make up for it. This weekend is Labor Day weekend, and laborious it will be. This is my Dad's memorial/funeral/celebration of his life. Whatever you call it, the truth is still shining brightly as a spotlight on my life. My dad is dead. I'm dreading this weekend as though I were going...to my dad's funeral. It will be nice to see my cousins and uncles, though I would be remiss to say the only person I'd really like to see there is my uncle's ex, K. It would be good for my soul and spirit to hang out with her for a while and talk. She'd put things in perspective and I'd just be so happy to see her, it might reduce my anxiety.

I absolutely abhor the idea that I didn't get to say goodbye properly. I'm always going to wonder if he knew I wasn't there and what he thought about that. I'm always going to wonder how horrifying it was to see him in his last days and hours. I'll never know, and that's for the best, but I'll still always wonder.

He's never coming back

it's close to 1:30 in the morning, August 10. The bizarre barrage of rain, thunder and lightning has finally stopped. I was asleep, curled up next to Mr. X, then I awoke and my brain became a power train of thoughts. Mostly about him.

He is gone now. Gone for real. Gone for good. Went away at July 19th, which was a Saturday, I believe. Mr. X and I were laying on our couches, watching some TV show, I don't recall which, but I heard Mr. X's phone go off a couple of times. then the last time that night. he came over and laid on top of me and whispered.

Dad's gone.

I just lay there, no tears, not much of a reaction. besides, it can't be true, can't be real. he can't have gone. I never said goodbye.

I probably talked to him one more time after our extremely short Father's Day conversation. And that conversation, the last one, wasn't much longer. He sounded terrible. his voice was crackling like he was parched from being in the desert for a week. He sounded weak, not the strong, stoic Dad I was used to talking to.

But when I reacted to Mr. X's words, I surprised myself. After 3 1/2 years of waiting, mourning, crying, sobbing, thinking the worst, it finally happened and I basically didn't react at all. I was in complete denial.

After 3 weeks of living in a drug-induced surreal world, people are starting to worry about me. I worry about me. I just want to feel numb. I don't want to feel my  grief or sorrow or anger or confusion. I have found myself randomly crying now, easily agitated, and paralyzed with feelings I don't even know how to describe.

Then there's the life insurance policy that mom essentially stole from us kids. We agreed to let it go after a lot of talk between the 5 of us, then the 4 of us, during which time mom called us money hungry and told me to get my act together and get a real job. But I won't lie and say I'm not still pissed and still think it's bullshit.
She forced Dad's hand during the divorce proceedings to sign it over to her. her excuse is so her kids won't have to take care of her financially. Well, if that's her excuse, then so be it. we won't take care of her financially. She just better remember this...R needed the money the most so he can get out of his living situation, B1 needs it desperately to live, pay off his student loans and have some cash, I need it for bills, student loans and to live on.

That's another reason I'm so depressed. I got another call for an interview for a show in LA. Where oh where were you two years ago. I feel with this pittance of an assistant job that's paying me $15/hour that I am getting farther and farther away from my production career. well, I'm getting a headache and i need to be up soon for Church. I better get going .
peace out,,,

Shakedown Street

This morning when i finally woke up, I was feeling it -- feeling the loss, the tears fell heavily, my body rocked with sobs, my face bloated and splotchy. I tried calling B1 and R and neither of them answered. I tried calling Dad's phone so I could hear his voice again, but they've already disconnected the line. Thankfully I have a few saved messages from him on my phone and he also narrated our trip. Speaking of trips, I have all those Route 66 hi-8 videos that I want to transfer to dvd. That will cost a pretty penny, but it will be worth it. ...This is a short entry because its' my fatherinlaw's birthday and I gotta go pick up my nieces....I love you daddy and miss you heaps.

Why don't you write?

So my friend asked me today why I wasn't writing lately. And I decided to try. It's Friday, July 25 at 11:42 pm. I had therapy in the am; had to tell her about Dad's death that I still haven't radically or un-radically accepted. It's been almost a week, well, if we say Sat - Fri it has been a week...i haven't talked to B1. or R. still. I have talked to B2 and J is going to be away for 2 weeks - very bad timing. so he's actually coming down next Fri thru Tues. We were supposed to go to Birmingham, AL for a show and Alpharetta the next night, Aug 3. We're selling our birmingham tickets hopefully for face and B2 is coming to his first phish show w me! R. took him to his first one, which if, my memory is correct, means B1 took me to my first Dead show, I took R to his first Phish show and R took B2 to his first phish show. i'm excited! that's a good feeling to have right now, considering I don't feel much of anything these days.

I occasionally feel the stream of wet lines drawing on my face. They make zig zag or wave patterns. Sometimes they're just straight downward. I haven't had a raging crying fit yet, and I don't know why. For the past three and a half years, I have been paralyzed on and off, battled wicked insomnia, cried til only sand was left in my eyes, wondering when the other show will drop, wondering if *this* is going to be the last visit, the last time I see my Dad. I've been nauseous a heap of time, awakened in the middle of the night from knee pain, endured headaches that lay me flat out, terrified that any call from my uncle or brother could be *the* call...or the *other* call, where R is back in the hospital, having more seizures or perhaps he finally did himself in...Perhaps I was ready too. Perhaps I am ready. Ready for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for him to be out of pain and misery.

But ultimately, I don't think I'm processing my father's death. I can't just call him up or text him...yeah, this entry is a lot like earlier posts and I'm assuming that future posts will be similar in context. Can't go for one last visit. I didn't even say goodbye.

It's true

As of 9:09 pm yesterday, Saturday July 19th, my father is gone. He's gone and he's never coming back. He's gone.

I'm not sure what I am feeling. Oddly, at ~9:15, I had texted my dad's wife asking what the best way to say good bye would be. He was already gone by then. Apparently he went into a coma at some .
point - both mom and his wife said "deep sleep". I've barely spoken with any of my brothers about this...oh except for being the one who broke the news to R and mom last. Not sure who called B, but my older bro got the call from Dad's wife and he called C to then tell me (idk what happened to my spelling and editing, but this is being written late and I've got no-one to edit this for me). After C got B1's info on what happened, he came over to me and laid down on me and told me he loved me and then whispered- "he's gone. Dad has passed." I certainly didn't react the way I expected myself to. I barely shed tears, posted missing-dog-or....See I'm not even making sense writing right now. I have no idea what this ^^ is all about...anyway, I wasn't a bobbleheaded crying mess either...As o f right now, [another deleted sentence making no sense].   Wow, see this is already to on...not making any sense. My brain is gobbledy-gook from all the sedatives et al I am currently on. yet I'm awake and I looks like I'm going to eat an entire box of Fiber One Lemon Snax. mmm. ... I am in complete denial that I can't call my dad up and talk trash against whoever was playing the Packers or Badgers or Ducks or Bucks. I can never call him up to find out what meds or special gargling treatment I can use to soothe my achy  joints. He fought hard for over 3 1/2 years against this ferocious cancer...I'll never again hear the joy in his voice when he talked about his island home and how beautiful all the flowers and herons and the tides rolling in and out (unlike my childhood, during which I rarely complimented the city etc). I'll never see a new smile from him. He'll never beat me at UNO and Yahtzee again. We'll never laugh with him as he tries and invariably fails to exactly quote a movie (I do that all the time though too - I unintentionally paraphrase quotes), or mispronounces words for our amusement.

yeah, yeah -- I knew it was coming. For over three years, I knew it could happen any day, but i still had hope that God would heal him. I knew every time we/I  went to see him could possibly be the last time I'd see him. But it still doesn't take away any of the shock when it actually happens. I'm a bit sad that one of our Phish shows falls directly on his birthday. That's happened before - when I saw the Phish at The Gorge (George, Washington). I remember baking in the sun, hoping that other people would be quick with their calls at PayPhones! Remember those? haaha. But I called and wished him a happy birthday.

This post is such a rambling mess. I will finish  right after these statements :
I'm gonna try and read this tomorrow and ask, wtf am  I thiking.
If people actually read this, what's the reaction gonna be. I don't kmow who I was trying to kill (sorry, CLUE flashback.

Stopped Making sense at the beginning. bye