Author note: My dad died six years ago this month. Life has churned on, as life does. And for the most part, I am in a healthy place with my grief but it is not done and it never ever will be. This month, I intend to pay homage to the process of grief itself, which is impacting us globally at a scale we’ve scarcely, if ever, seen.
No matter how much time has passed since I lost the first man I ever loved, every once in a while, without an identifiable trigger, I am overcome with the need to open the floodgates and let myself cry.
Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot.
This piece was written three months after losing him to pancreatic cancer, when it happened a whole hell of a lot.
Image by CESAR AUGUSTO RAMIREZ VALLEJO from Pixabay
Originally published December 2015 on my personal blog.
I chose a table out of sight. Not exactly a corner, but behind the beverage station and as quiet as could be found in a lively joint.
It wasn’t crowded or anything, being eleven AM on a Thursday, but I was there to get some work done and needed limited distractions.
Maybe, also, I knew it was coming.
And I was drawn to that small slice of privacy in a public place.
The tidal wave had been building all week.
Vivid dreams. Strange things keeping me from real rest. An active sleeping period that leaves me drained in the morning, even when I’ve fallen into an exhausted heap at nine the night before.
Moments of intense anxiety.
A scratching feeling in my gut and the desire to scream that I didn’t want this to be this way. I wasn’t ready. I don’t accept this. I can’t really get this.
I nestle into my semiprivate kind-of-corner cozy spot and flip open my Macbook to start clicking away. A Simon & Garfunkel tune floats over the airwaves and without the most miniscule chance of stopping it…
I’ve sprung a leak.
Image by analogicus from Pixabay
And they drop. And they come. And they kind of feel good but I have to face the wall because I don’t want anyone coming over all, “Oh, honey, whatever’s the matter?”
So I let them fall. And I tell myself to stop. But I don’t because I can’t.
And I don’t really want to anyway.
And here I sit, eight hours later with the same leaky system. Dropping my pain and cleansing my brain and feeling this all over again like it just happened yesterday.
And so it shall be.
From time to time.
Forever and ever.
A hole that will never be fixed.
A system that will always leak.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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Photo credit: Pixabay
