I’ve been working. I’ve been functioning. I’ve been getting up, getting dressed, going places and doing the things I’m supposed to do. I can only describe myself as unnaturally okay. But that’s kind of my thing. I’m always fine. I don’t know if that’s one of my better qualities, a serious character flaw or a trauma response, but even my dad dying hasn’t changed it.
I’ve cried, of course. I’ve had moments. But I haven’t had that giant breakdown where I collapse into a puddle and sob uncontrollably. Part of me keeps waiting for it. Mostly I’m just wandering around trying to figure out what life looks like without my dad, and I haven’t even come close to figuring that out. The ache in my chest that I talked about before is still there. That empty feeling. Sometimes I’m sad, but lately I think I’m actually more angry.
I’m angry about what happened to him. I’m angry about his decline and how fucking unfair it was. I’m angry that I don’t have my dad in my life anymore, regardless of what the last couple of years looked like. I wanted him to die at the end. I can say that without feeling guilty because I know why I wanted it. I didn’t want him living that way anymore, and I know he wouldn’t have wanted it either.
But there was something so sweet about him at the end too. He was always saying, “Love you” and “Thank you.” Even with everything that had been taken from him, there were still pieces of my dad there, and I feel incredibly honored that I was able to help Kathy care for him those last few months. I don’t think there was ever a time when he didn’t know who we were, which was something I had been so scared of.
He had been such a huge presence my entire life that I don’t even know how to explain who he was, how he was, what he was to me. Everything reminds me of him now. Sometimes it makes me smile. Sometimes it gives me that pain in my chest. We’ll go somewhere or I’ll be doing something completely normal and there he is again.
We don’t even want to acknowledge Thanksgiving this year. It’s going to be so bizarre without him. I know there are going to be all these firsts without Dad, but I don’t particularly want to think about them yet.
Thankfully, everyone has mostly been leaving me alone, which I appreciate more than they probably know. I don’t really know what I’m doing or what I need.
A little over a week ago, I went up to Wisconsin to help Ken after his prostate surgery and make sure he could pee again, which is probably TMI and some sort of HIPAA violation. I’m really glad I went. He needed the help, and honestly, I think I needed the distraction.
Ken is an incredibly nervous, overthinking, neurotic patient. He had to have a catheter, and from the way he was moving around, you would have thought one wrong step would cause every organ in his body to fall directly onto the floor. Everything actually went extraordinarily well. I stayed two nights, he got the catheter out, and I made sure the man successfully peed a couple of times before I headed home.
Because we were supposed to go camping that weekend.
And for some reason, when camping got canceled because of the rain, that was the thing that completely gutted me. I think I had made it the light at the end of the tunnel without realizing it. Dad died, then everything that comes with someone dying, then I basically went straight into taking care of Ken. In my head, camping was where I was going to run away. The woods. Matt. Heather and Rusty. Laughing, drinking, sitting around the fire and not dealing with any of this shit for a couple of days.
So when it fell apart, I felt really fucking sorry for myself.
I dumped on Matt. It turned into a thing because he thought I was upset with him for not wanting to sit in an RV all weekend while it rained. I wasn’t. I completely understood why he didn’t want to do that. I was just fucking sad.
I didn’t need him to explain why camping didn’t make sense. I needed my husband to say, I know, babe. This fucking sucks. I know how much you needed this. And maybe even, Fuck it. Let’s figure out something else fun to do.
I wasn’t trying to fight with him. I was trying to tell him I was sad and I needed him. Sometimes I need to be allowed to feel sorry for myself without it becoming something that needs to be defended or solved.
Anyway, Ken was peeing when I left Thursday afternoon, which seemed like a solid place to end my shift. I drove home in the rain and went to bed early because I was depressed about Dad or camping or life or whatever combination of all three was happening in my head.
And of course, the next day Ken couldn’t pee.
By then I had decided to go back to work instead of taking the vacation day I had planned, and suddenly I’m thinking, Oh my God, am I going to have to drive two hours back up there? Of course I would help him. I love him. But this is also where I get frustrated.
For five years, since my mom died, I’ve been trying to get Ken to move closer to us. There is always a reason he can’t or shouldn’t or isn’t ready. Maybe part of it is that he doesn’t want to leave the last place he shared with my mom. I can understand that.
But I also just watched what happened with my dad. I was able to be there. I could help Kathy. I could be part of those last months because Dad was close enough for me to actually do it. I can’t do that for Ken from two hours away.
And being up there with him made me realize how lonely it is. I made him dinner those two nights and sat there wondering what his days look like when I’m not there, which is obviously most of the time.
Then my brain immediately went to Kathy.
Because now she’s alone too.
She and I are struggling with different versions of the same question: What the hell does life look like without my dad?
Kathy has kept herself incredibly busy, before Dad died and after. There was always something that needed to be done. But eventually you sit down. Eventually it gets quiet. And then everything comes flooding in.
She’s sad. I worry about her. I don’t want her to be lonely, and I don’t want to look at her life and see what I see when I look at Ken’s.
I don’t know. Grief is fucking weird.
Life without my dad is even weirder.
And life has decided there will be absolutely no shortage of other people I love going through their own shit while I figure mine out.
One of my friends has been struggling terribly with her mental health and is getting help, which I’m incredibly proud of her for doing. It’s been heartbreaking to watch, and it’s also made me think a lot about friendship, empathy and boundaries.
I’ve spent the last year or two trying to get better at having boundaries. Now I’m trying to figure out where those boundaries end when somebody you love genuinely isn’t well. Because mental illness deserves compassion. Absolutely. But the people who love you still have jobs and kids and spouses and parents and illnesses and grief and their own shit happening too.
Sometimes the hour or two someone has available is them showing up for you. Sometimes saying no to something they aren’t comfortable doing isn’t a rejection of you.
That’s where I struggle. I want to have compassion without completely abandoning the boundaries I’ve worked so hard to build.
And the truth is, we can’t fix this for her anyway. We’re her friends. We can love her, listen to her, show up when we can and remind her that she matters. But some things are bigger than what a group of girlfriends can fix by loving someone hard enough.
She needs real help, and thankfully she’s getting it.
I talked to Grace, who is all “degreed-up” in psychology, and she reassured me that there is help for this. Nobody is denying the pain or trauma underneath any of it. I just want my friend to find her way back to herself.
Maybe all of this is why I’ve been thinking so much about women lately.
Today is October 1, the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is always a little weird for me now. I’m all for wearing pink. I’ve actually really gotten into pink, which is funny considering I spent most of my life happiest wearing black.
Usually I like getting together with my fellow breast cancer warriors sometime during October. I plan a dinner or something, although I’m not particularly good at planning anything right now. But this year I think I want it to be about more than breast cancer.
I want to celebrate the women in my life.
Because holy shit, this age is a lot.
Our bodies are changing. Our minds are changing. There are health scares and surgeries and diagnoses. We’re losing parents. Some are losing spouses. Our kids are growing up and leaving the nest. We’re becoming caregivers for the people who once took care of us. Some of us have had cancer. Some are dealing with mental health. Some are figuring out how to be single again or how to live alone.
And somehow we’re all still moving along.
I don’t even necessarily want to celebrate how “strong” we all are, because sometimes I think women get stuck having to be strong because everybody expects us to handle everything. I want to celebrate all of it. The strong women. The struggling women. The women who have survived some shit. The ones currently in the middle of it. The ones who need people around them right now.
I’m especially thinking about the single women and widows in my life differently. They need company. They need girlfriends. They need dinner invitations and people to do things with. Being independent doesn’t mean you always want to be alone. Maybe watching Kathy suddenly have to figure out a completely different life has made me more aware of that.
And then there’s Natalie.
I’m super bummed I won’t be with her for her birthday again this year. Last year she was actually excited about spending her birthday by herself. She had this whole idea that she was going to enjoy her own company and have this lovely independent birthday.
Turns out, not so much.
We ended up crying together on the phone.
So I swore this year I was going to surprise her. I actually started trying to arrange flying out next Wednesday, taking her to dinner and flying home the next morning.
Then I looked at airfare.
Jesus Christ.
And I feel shitty even complaining about the cost because Natalie is so incredibly generous to me, especially with Mexico. But it was ridiculous.
Kathy is also heading to New Jersey a few days early, and I want to help her with George so she can get away. That’s important to me too. Natalie will be here in a couple of weeks, so I’ll figure out something special to celebrate her when she gets here.
Matt and I did manage to have a really nice night out last week. His cousin gave us Sox tickets, which he was excited about, and I’m giving Matt credit because he asked me to go and we drove downtown on a Friday. Then afterward he went with me to a restaurant I’ve wanted to try for years, which was completely out of character for him.
So he’s trying.
I think I hurt him when I said I’m always taking care of everyone else and right now I need him to take care of me. Maybe that sounded like a much bigger assignment than I meant it to.
He can’t fix this either.
I don’t even know exactly what “take care of me” means right now. Sometimes it probably just means recognizing that I’m sad without trying to fix it. Sometimes it means suggesting we do something fun. Sometimes it means going to the restaurant I’ve wanted to try for years. And sometimes it means understanding that I’m going to sit outside staring at the dogs while he cleans the house because my brain has temporarily stopped participating in normal life.
He is trying.
And I’m trying too.
I’ve also been reading a lot, which has become this unexpected little thing in my life. Crissy recommended Theo of Golden, and I’m barely into it and already obsessed. I can tell I’m going to fall completely in love with this old man.
There’s something about the way he moves through life that is really getting to me right now. He has time to literally stop and smell the flowers. He drinks his coffee. He’s curious. He looks around. He notices things.
I keep thinking, I want some of that.
Maybe it’s Dad. Maybe it’s the last few years being one crisis or responsibility after another. Maybe I’m just 50 and fucking tired. But I like the idea of slowing down enough to actually notice my own life.
Crissy also gets credit for getting me out of my usual literary comfort zone of serial killers and murder. Natalie started doing that to me last year with Remarkably Bright Creatures and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Kathy just started Evelyn Hugo too, and Remarkably Bright Creatures may honestly be one of my favorite books.
Who knew I could read nice stories?
The last time I was in New Jersey, I heard Kevin and their friend Mona talking about Into the Woods. I tried that one and could never get through it, so they can’t all be winners.
I also recently listened to Barack Obama’s book podcast and realized I hadn’t read any of the books they talked about, so I’d like my reading list to continue to grow. But his list—Gilead, The Fire Next Time, Song of Solomon, All the Pretty Horses, All the King’s Men, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy—seems a little tough for me.
Have you read these?
I do want to be like him when I grow up.
It has been raining for three days, which has done absolutely nothing for my already questionable mood. But it’s supposed to clear up tomorrow morning, and we are officially on for this weekend.
I’m ridiculously excited.
It’s going to be chilly, but honestly that sounds perfect. Being cozy around the fire with Matt, Heather and Rusty, getting a good workout in walking through the woods, drinking some beers, laughing and getting away from everything for a couple of days sounds exactly like what I need.
So everyone please pray to whatever God, universe or weather system you believe in.
No fucking rain.
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