Picking at the Pieces

Tuesday was challenging because one of the hardest things in life for me is facing death. When I stood at Bob's bedside Easter Sunday morning, I was instantly a just-turned 17-year-old girl standing at my father's bedside. My dad was not a big man physically, but he was the world's largest man to me because he cared about me. I was his little princess, a portrait of a difficult child that few shared with my daddy. I had issues, and I had them with my dad, but his death ended my life in far too many ways. I made many bad choices after daddy died, but I've always believed that we are the sum of where we've been, what we've done, as well as our regrets. I like to think I'd never about so many aspects of my life, but I know that if I were transported backward in time, I would make the same mistakes again.

My dad accused me of doing something I simply did not do, when friends invited me to dinner, followed by a school event, and then a sleep-over at a neighbor's home. I had few friends because, quite simply, I had no idea how to be a friend. My mother isolated herself from other people, from going places/doing things, to protect her from reliving her past -- and, in many ways, I followed suit. Not good/not bad/just is. No one knows how excited I was to be celebrating my 17th birthday with the neighborhood girls, the first time in my life that I had stepped away from the isolation of my family life and experienced what it was like to be one of the girls. We followed all the rules because I've always followed all the rules, but my dad checked up on us. Rather than knocking on the door, he walked over to Ellen's home for a looksee and came to his own erroneous conclusion.

When I came back home the next morning from my special celebration, my father, who was my protector, attacked me with wild accusations and harsh punishments. Typically, I screamed back at him, used to this kind of verbal abuse from my mother, but unable to handle it from my father. No one knew that he was very ill on that day, but two weeks later, he went into the hospital and he died a mere 6 week's after my 17th birthday. No, we never got past the horror of the birthday party because there simply was no time to do so, but I stood at his bedside the night before he died -- and wished that I had never gone there and/or seen that. It haunts me to this day that "that" was my father.

Easter Sunday morning, I made myself go to the hospital and say goodbye to Bob because I've never been able to do that since I stood at my father's bedside and prayed that he would come back home so I could again be "daddy's little girl." It didn't happen, of course, because he was no longer daddy, but the barely breathing remains of his earthly form. I shut down church because no one could tell me why my father had to die when I had a long list of other candidates for that eternal punishment, including my own mother. My family imploded because we were not allowed to talk about it, nor to attend his graveside service. My job was to take the younger children home and get the house ready for people who would stop by after the funeral. I finally went to my father's grave, with my own children, but I think I had already celebrated my 45th birthday before that happened.

When another dear friend's husband died, I went to the hospital until almost the last day, but it was so hard to see him as I had seen my father. He was not the man I knew, and I did not want the memory of his last days to be my memory of all our days, as it was with my father. I was there for him, as well as my friend, but I did not go to his funeral because I didn't know how to do that. He was a good man and I wanted to be there, but my friend told me it was okay not to participate in the funeral. I didn't know how much I hurt her when I could not stand with her that day until only a few years' ago, so I now know how much she cared about me to support me during her time of intense, personal, devastating loss.

Bob's wife asked for some alone time, and I honor her wishes, but today, I'm not calling ahead to ask permission. I don't want her to tell me a decade later how much I hurt her by not showing up when she needed me to be there. My instinct is to run like hell away from anyone's grief, but most especially my own, but if we're going to cry, we're going to share our tears together, out in the open. I'll never be good at this, but I'm going to be better at doing it anyway.

Death is a natural part of life, but when we treat it as unspeakable, undoable, unacceptable, it changes our life forever. I do not fear death, but I do fear showing my pain at the loss of loved ones. I want to be strong, I want to somehow make it all better, but that's not my job. Today, I'm just going to take the cookies I baked this morning and go say hi to my friend, if only for a minute today, but forever if she wants me to be there with her.