A letter in your writing doesn't mean you're not dead

[Mica H.]

Sometimes being right is a real bitch; he died four days after my last post. I came down with covid the same day and wound up too sick to fly to the funeral. On the one hand it saved me all the inane smiling and nodding while people say lovely things that don’t help you at all. On the other, I remain closure free.

And grief, oh, grief. It’s quite the can opener. You can be quietly minding your business cooking dinner, start weeping a bit about your poor dead father for no specific reason, and then suddenly have a horrifying moment of clarity about some other aspect of your life. Is the clarity legitimate and simply facilitated by your emotional trauma? Or is your grief falsely metastasizinig? (Heh. Cancer pun intended.) Is there really a difference?

Work has been a distraction. Drinking tequila and going for a run more so (I don’t take the dogs; I’m not an irresponsible monster). But getting stabbed with a needle for two hours yesterday is our winner so far. I was toying with the idea of getting a therapist, but pinko’s post has convinced me to trust my baser instincts.

M
[‘alcoholism and self mutilation it is.’]

[pinkorangered]

Post by Mica H.
Sometimes being right is a real bitch; he died four days after my last post. I came down with covid the same day and wound up too sick to fly to the funeral. On the one hand it saved me all the inane smiling and nodding while people say lovely things that don’t help you at all. On the other, I remain closure free.
And grief, oh, grief. It’s quite the can opener. You can be quietly minding your business cooking dinner, start weeping a bit about your poor dead father for no specific reason, and then suddenly have a horrifying moment of clarity about some other aspect of your life. Is the clarity legitimate and simply facilitated by your emotional trauma? Or is your grief falsely metastasizinig? (Heh. Cancer pun intended.) Is there really a difference?
Work has been a distraction. Drinking tequila and going for a run more so (I don’t take the dogs; I’m not an irresponsible monster). But getting stabbed with a needle for two hours yesterday is our winner so far. I was toying with the idea of getting a therapist, but pinko’s post has convinced me to trust my baser instincts.
M
[‘alcoholism and self mutilation it is.’]

I think the absence of closure has been the most difficult aspect of the human condition I've had to deal with. I've been waiting 8 years to find out why L went from "I love you and always want you in my life" to "Actually if I ever want to talk to you I'll let you know, don't contact me" in the space of about a month, with no obvious contributing factors. Trying to understand is what led me to this (that) therapist in the first place. After about 2 years and a few grand, her professional opinion was "she felt shame, probably because of the age difference". Which is a bit like "Yeah your engine's broken, because it won't go any more".

But this isn't about me.

I'm sorry you didn't get to see him. I presume this was Biodad? I watched my own father die of cancer. Well almost. We were all around the bed, he was unconscious and his breathing slowed and slowed and slowed over the day. They'd removed his dentures - it was the first time I'd ever seen him without them, and he looked very undignified, head back and mouth wide open. A minute would pass, we thought he'd gone, then suddenly what was left of that little bit of brain down the back fired up just enough for one more breath. And again, and so on. I couldn't stand it, I've never been one for group family moments of any kind, so I left, and as I drove out of the hospital "we live in a beautiful world" (Coldplay?) came on the radio. I remember thinking, "the worst part about dying is, you don't get to see what happens". They took a photo after his last breath. I'm pretty sure he would have preferred they took it a minute earlier.

But this isn't about me.

I guess they aren't the same dogs you were walking 20 years ago.