Even on bright, warm, sunshiny days like today -- doesn't matter, in fact that's probably not helping at all since that's what it was like on the day my Dad died, too. Hopefully it will be different when the weather is different. I don't know. I don't like being more irritable than I've ever been in my life, ever, on Fridays, but I can't help it. It's like, if anyone says anything at all to me, my gut reaction is, "Oh yeah? Well, my Dad died, so..." It's literally all that is on my mind on Fridays. Every other day of the week I do think about my Dad, but Friday is the day my mind focuses on the day he died. Maybe I can try to change that, and start finding other things to think about him on Fridays. Maybe it's too early to try to change that yet and I need to ride this out a bit longer. Trying to change it feels wrong. Riding it out feels right. I don't like feeling this way but it feels like what I'm supposed to be doing. I mean, it's not like that wasn't a traumatizing day, or anything. Don't get me wrong, I thank God just about every night that I got to be there for it, and as far as deaths go it was one of the most peaceful things a person could ever hope for in their, um, lives (?) . . . but deep down when you really think about it, it was still traumatic for the rest of us who were there.
But that's not what I want to talk about.
I want to talk about the random things that have made me cry in the last two days. Weird things. I was driving home last night and the song "Dream On" by Aerosmith was on the radio (yes, I still listen to the radio, er ma gersh) and I was singing along because of course I was, and in the middle of it, I started crying. I have no flipping idea why. That was my first thought when the tears started flowing. I don't know if my Dad had even ever heard this song (although I'm guessing he probably had, at some point.) I'd never heard him sing it, or reference it in any way. It was definitely more my kind of music than his. The tears stopped almost as quickly as they started, so I just shrugged it off. But, really? I couldn't figure that one out.
I know I said random "things", plural, but now I can't remember what the other random thing was. I know it was something else on the way home yesterday. It wasn't another song. I don't remember. Dangit!
But yeah. I started the "Things That Made Me Cry Today" posts on FB a while ago as a self-depreciating joke, but I didn't expect it to be prophetic. Random or not-so-random things used to make me cry every now and then when I was feeling super stressed out. So either I'm beyond the point of super-stressed out now, or more in touch with my feelings, or something, because I cry about something almost every day. And the "something" I cry about is usually my Dad and all the crap he had to go through with that stupid, stupid dementia. Dementia sucks. I have always hated the way it takes perfectly wonderful, capable, strong, proud people and turns them into shells of their former selves, and now that it's taken my Dad, I hate it even more. It just breaks my heart into a begillion tiny shards, the memories I have of my Dad being stuck in the stupid Broda/geri chair, having to be spoon-fed stupid pureed food and wheeled everywhere and not even being able to do anything for himself. That was worse than watching him take his last breath. When he took his last breath, it broke my heart, too, but at least I knew he was free. He wouldn't need anyone to do anything for him ever again. He was with Jesus at that moment -- he was whole again, he was breathing without any problems, taking nice, big, effortless breaths of clean, pure air, his heart was beating strong and rhythmically, and he was dancing in Heaven on legs that would never let him down again.
God...I miss my Dad.
7 weeks down, the rest of my life to go.
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