God willing.

I was talking to a girl at school and I was telling her that I was really worried about my grieving process. The whole first week my dad was in the hospital, I was very emotional. I was feeling through everything. I was, so I thought, grieving. But I hit this wall. I just became numb. I go to hospice house, listen to my dad's painful, desperate breathing and I just sit there and stare. The only prominent emotion I have is anger. And I don't even know who or what I'm so mad about half the time. Maybe just the overwhelming sense that there is this force invading my life and there is nothing I can do about it.


Whoever said that death is like the movies, lied. People don't die in hospital beds with family standing around whispering words of wisdom and encouragement. It's this slow drawn out process and when you think the moment is upon you, they bounce back. And when you think you've accepted it, think again. And when you think "comfort" means pain free, it doesn't. There's a lot of beautiful moments in death, don't get me wrong. Someone told me, "I think we're meant to watch people suffer through death to provoke a higher level of acceptance." The reality of it being, every time my dad struggles to take a breath I start pleading with God to put him out of his misery.


My therapist brought up a point I've been throwing around. He told me that the saying, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle," is bullshit. And I'm drawing closer to the conclusion of agreeing with him. Besides the sheer obviousness of suicide, there are just some situations that defeat us. And not that defeat is even necessarily a bad thing. I think it's just the reality of life to experience defeat. It's the purest form of death we can experience in life. It's means to start again.

I’ve kept myself busy studying the ways those around me cope. It was hardest to watch my grandpa in the hospital fight with all his might to not cry. To just hold it all inside. And then one day he broke. And he let my dad go, and the rest of us felt at peace. Now my grandparents just sit. Day in and day out they stay in my dad’s room, knitting, working on crosswords, bickering. Waiting. Taking care of him like he’s a little boy again. My grandpa talks to him and refers to him as “kid”. My grandma takes his hand and assures him that “mom is here.” And this is where God was unfair… if this whole situation has to have a root for the blameful. It’s not right for anyone to bury a child. It’s not right that this is the second they’ve said good bye to.

When I’m sitting next to his bed and it’s just us, I feel this sense of emptiness. I wonder daily where his soul is. If it’s just hovering over his body deciding when the right time is. I wonder what he’s waiting for. I wonder if there’s anything more I can say. I wonder when. I wonder if I’ll be here. I wonder if I want to be here. A friend, who lost his mother in March to cancer, told me you think you get to acceptance when they’re still “here”. You think you’ve grieved and you assure yourself you’re ready to let them go. Then it happens. And you break down. Again. Harder. I don’t know if I have it in me to mourn again. I don’t know if I even mourned. I just know it hurts.

I just know I want it over. Selfishly. Peacefully.