Six months ago today we buried my father. I haven't been able to write about it because I always said I would when it stopped hurting so much. But six months has done little to ease the void I feel. Instead I've just learned to live with it -- like an endless affliction or crippling ailment with no known cure. The pain of not having him hasn't eased not one bit. I can still cry on a whim when I think about him and I still feel the vast chasm of time from the day he left this earth. The world seems emptier without him.
I miss him every single day. Sometimes I'll look at pictures or hear my playlist devoted to him, and just cry by myself. It's so easy to cry. Sometimes I'll lie in bed and I'll be in that place where you're not really asleep but you're not really dreaming, and I'll see him or hear him and it will feel so real. When I'm very quiet and very still, I can hear his voice. One day I was lying in bed and I could've sworn I heard him say my name -- it felt so real that I literally jumped up in bed and felt my heart race through my chest. And when I realized it was just my mind playing tricks on me, it felt like he died all over again.
Every time I run out of milk I remember how he never let me run out of milk, or bananas, or Diet Coke. How I was in his every thought. How much he loved my children. I miss his grumbling and complaining about pretty much everything. How in one breath he would get mad at the kids, and in the next sit down and watch back to back episodes of iCarly with them.
I think of the disappointments I caused him and the words I never said and I know that even if I would've done everything right, I would still feel as sad. But having something to linger on gives me instant justification when I go to that dark place in my thoughts and I'm looking for a reason to be there and mourn for him. His presence in my life was a comfort that I will never get over losing. The perfection of that kind of love can never be duplicated and knowing I will never experience it again makes me sad to the point of despair some days.
Every time I cry for any reason, some of those tears are over him. In my darkest moments about anything at all, the sadness of losing my father still grips my heart and ricochets through my gut and no matter what I do, or try not to do, when I'm sad for any reason at all I think of him and it makes me even sadder. Sadness is the perfect place to be sometimes.
They say that crying and writing are therapeutic. In a way I think that's true. It helps to get it out -- but only temporarily. It doesn't really take away any of the pain, it just wears you out to think and talk and write and cry. So you get tired of feeling, until you get the energy to do it all over again.
I'll never forget those last few months. It all began on Easter Sunday when he sat in my house and complained about shortness of breath. A few days later I got the call at work that he had asked to be taken to the hospital and instantly I felt that punch that blows straight through your gut and out your back and it cripples you and leaves you breathless because you know. You just know. Well, I knew. At that moment I knew. And in April when the doctor said he had 8-12 months to live I knew there was no hope no matter what anyone said or what we did. But what I didn't know is that it would be only five.
The last time I saw him wearing a diaper and being carried from the wheelchair to the bed I felt the entire weight of the world inside of me. In that instant I knew I could no longer wish for him to live. The worst part was that he had lost his shame. The manly pride had dissipated as he waited for someone, anyone to sit him up or lay him down. I didn't want my father to live like that but I couldn't wish for him to die either.
It's so hard. It still hurts. I could write an entire book and it wouldn't be enough. There hasn't been a word invented that really grasps the magnitude of a loss like this. There is an emptiness unlike any other emptiness I have ever experienced that walks with me always. When I'm sad about anything at all, the hole gets deeper. And when I'm happy, it's an ache that I can't share my joy with him and that he left not knowing if I was okay. He left worried about me and I didn't want that. I wanted him to know that I was okay even if I really wasn't.
It's been six months and I still haven't erased his number from my phone although the line was canceled long ago. I can't bring myself to delete it as stupid as that may sound. I still listen to the voice mails he left me...often. I only have two right now and you would think I listen because there was some beautiful poignant message but the truth is all he says is, "Veronica, it's me. Call me when you get this message." But hearing him say my name is enough, maybe because it's the most tangible thing I have left. The most real part of life, his daily calls. I miss those too.
It's been six months since I've seen my dad, and today six months feels like a very long time.
