All Is Well Until it's Not & Then it is Again

On adjustment after my father's death.

It has been 4 days since my father passed.

Sometimes I say it out loud because I need to hear it: “My dad is dead.”

Yes, denial is one of the stages of grief, but that is not why I say it. I say it because his death feels so surreal. Maybe all deaths do. I do not know. I have not lost a parent before. Friends, grandparents, and pets yes—but a parent… no. I’ve only got 2 and mom is still in tact.

My dad and I are not, were not, especially close—but we are dynamically connected. He is one of my greatest “teachers”. I learned how to survive so much through the terrain of our relationship. The truth is that I grieved our relationship so much for so many years I am not sure that I have any more grief in me for the man. For myself, though? We shall see.

I do not know how I am supposed to feel.

People ask, “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” I reply.

But I am not really sure what that means.

I am not howling on the bathroom floor. I am not drinking myself into a stupor. I am not binge eating. I am more or less just living my life mostly as I always do.

Maybe a bit slower.

Maybe a lot slower.

Life feels as if it is moving in slow motion a times right now and that seems okay.

“Are you eating and writing?” Those are the questions that my people would ask me when I got a bit “unhinged”. And I am actually eating, writing, and even reading. It would be okay if I were not, but I am. I don’t feel “unhinged”.

What I feel is calm, mostly.

There are pockets of anxiety where something “feels like” I (it) “should” be doing something. What, I do not know. There is nothing to do but breathe, but besides that I have been spending a fair amount of time staring between my cobalt-blue-painted toes at the sky, the clouds, and at the bumblebees that frequent the service berry bush outside my bedroom window.

The position I take up—head pointed towards the “foot” of the bed, feet on the sill, or actually hanging out the open window above the “head” of the bed—is my classic stance for warding off anxiety and establishing neurological regulation. I am not really anxious right now, though.

I don’t know what I am.

I am okay, until I am not.

Not being okay looked like feeling worry rise and crackle through my synapses like 4th of July firecrackers the other night when my daughter was out late with my granddaughters and her phone went dead. Walk. Tea. Text someone who did a great job of talking me down.

Phew!

Okay looked like being able to fall asleep that night and wake normally the next day, have coffee, walk the dog, talk to a neighbor, and head downtown for a bite to eat as I waited for some messages to arrive.

Not being okay looked like getting 2 text messages simultaneously with a phone call. Every cell in my body began screaming, “Boundary violation!” at the content of the conversation, but also just the sense of overstimulation as I was eating my cottage cheese and peach pancake and enjoying my latte. The truth is my system started to buzz as soon as I became entangled with all the tourists who decided to grace main street with their presence on a Wednesday mid-afternoon; that was before I even parked my car.

Not being okay looked like the restaurant scenery starting to fade—that panic attack “buzz” moving through my hands and head—and realizing I was going to have a panic attack at my table if I did not get to the bathroom pronto. Once in the bathroom, I crouched on the floor, gulped air, and let myself cry a bit before returning to the restaurant and asking for the check and a to go box. ASAP.

I am okay.

I am not okay.

After navigating the traffic that seemed to come out of nowhere, I arrived at the sanctuary of my house, my daughter’s arrival coinciding not long after. It was then that I told her, “I am not okay,” and left the house with the dog.

And I wasn’t okay, but as I walked I was again.

I hugged a neighbor. I asked her for a hug. She climbed onto her porch steps so she could leverage her petite frame around my 5’9’ one to properly embrace me. I spoke of dad’s death; she’s known my mom for years, and she spoke of what she did when her own father passed—lots of walking.

Okay…

I am okay.

Being okay looks like sitting in the park being able to text someone with whom my own anxious attachment indicators used to fire off the charts for with no problem. He is actually pretty consistently a solid support these days so that, too, is a nice shift.

Okay was “holding” a disappointment with equanimity that quickly became relief and then joy.

Okay looked like going to the liquor store and grocery store, but being slightly less than okay looked like taking 20 minutes to choose a fucking juice for a mixer because they did not have my fantasy blend available: orange-pineapple; that’s all I wanted, but nooooo! I had to pick some configuration that incorporated the two non mixed and that was harrrrrd.

I am struggling with choices right now.

It took me over an hour to choose a sandwich from the Pickle Barrel menu and add it to my Door Dash cart. By the way, if you ever know of someone going through something, Door Dash gift cards are magic. You don’t have to cook. People just bring food to you. It’s amazing! And as the gifter you get to give the bereaved something that they will actually use because we all need to eat and as nice as all the “Let me know what I can do,” offers are we, the bereaved, do not know what the fuck we want or need. Grief groceries are also great. Send us basics. Send us comfort food, gift cards even cash for a little “self-care”.

Don’t ask us what we need.

We cannot tell you how you can help us. We are staring at the sky through our cobalt-blue-painted toes. We do not know if our underwear is clean or what day it actually is.

We, the bereaved, have no idea what we need.

We hear all the time that grief comes in layers and waves. That sounds almost polite like watching the tides come and go, but no, not really.

There are 5 stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. People talk about these phases as if they move in a predictable linear fashion, but the truth is that they rise and fall whenever the hell they want very untidelike, indeed.

I have had bursts of anger. Mostly as the fact that Dad and I had not spoken for over a year, but he had talked to other people and about me. “Your dad wants you to know.” Pfffttt! Fuck! If he “wanted me to know” he could have returned any of my calls or texts over the last year. Did he? No. I hear he was “constantly losing his phone”, but he talked to you—just not me.

Mad. There it is… I am mad. And I am okay with it.

Feeling angry feels more anticipated than the blank slate feeling that occupies my mind most of the time right now. How do you feel? What do you need? Are you okay?

How the fuck should I know?

“My dad is dead.”

I repeat it to the empty kitchen of my lover’s cabin. There is no echo, no quiet whisper saying, “No he’s not, “ or even “He’s in a better place,” which I actually do believe he is. I do not think his spirit lingered on this plane long after his death. Others (psychics) say it as well, as they did with my friend Mina—and that was bollocks!—but dad… yeh, I think he is gone and that is a relief.

And with that relief I feel okay.

I feel slightly less okay when I think of engaging with life’s hustle, bustle, and endless needs, the needs of little bodies, and of others. With the fact that life will demand that I do something besides stare between my toes soon.

I am not really okay with that. But I will be.

It has not even been a week since I knew he was dying and not in some “We are all dying” philosophical fish fry way, nut in real—”Aw, holy fuck! Dad is dying!” kinda way. And he did and that, too, is okay.

And sometimes, mostly, I am, too.

Okay.

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I will keep adding to the layers and nuances of my dad’s passing as they are revealed to me. Thanks for reading.

Love,

~Justice