The grief that was 2019

It seems unreal that 2019 is almost over. DAMN, this year was truly a blink of an eye, a fallen tear, a short dream. Or maybe it was a nightmare. For me, it was certainly more nightmarish than dreamy.

It seems unreal that it was more than a year ago that I buried my Pops. He died on Oct. 29, 2018 and was buried on Nov. 4, 2018. He was 71. I was 36. It seems like yesterday that he called me from the hospital to tell me he had another heart attack, but this one was pretty serious and they’d be flying him to Shreveport, Louisiana from where he was for emergency surgery. It seems as if I was just there with him in that hospital, laughing and joking and making plans to bring him home with me after he finished the rehab he’d have to do following his quadruple bypass.

He never made it to the rehab center and never made it home with me. It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in my office on that Monday morning going numb after listening to doctors trying to revive him, telling me he was clinically dead for the last 11 minutes and it was up to me what they should do next. The rest is history, but certainly doesn’t seem like history. It seems like today, the present.

What I know for certain is I let go of a piece of myself as I let go of him. But I’m starting to realize, after much depression, anxiety, pain and therapy, possibly that piece of me that died with him on Oct. 29 was just a piece of me I didn’t really need any longer. There was nothing I could do to prevent my father’s death. And there was nothing I could possibly do to feel any better about it either. I had to feel it in my way. I had to experience it in my way. I had to spiral as far down as I did to even recognize again which way was up.

Those feelings were so deep down, far beneath many layers. And each layer was necessary. It’s the most horrendous pain I’ve ever felt. And perhaps the spiraling is far from over. I may never stop spiraling, because he’s certainly never coming home. I know I will never experience happiness the same. I will never experience sadness the same. I will never experience the world the same. I will never experience loss the same. Simply put, my life will never be the same. That’s just how much Ralph Donaldson meant to my existence, to my sanity, to my life.

And I’ve made peace with all of that, or at least I’m telling myself I have. I’m telling myself I have to keep living. And that’s just how I’m surviving today. He’s dead, but I’m not…not yet, and far from it, I hope. The best thing I can do in his memory is rebuild and refocus...one day at a time. I have to plant my feet firmly on this new path, this path without Pops, and navigate it in a way he would be proud of.

This won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is easy!