Y’all, I have not fixed my hands to type any sort of blog post in literal years. I think this Substack has one post and it’s been registered for a couple of years. My old domain has gone into some sort of legacy mode and I can’t even access it, even though I still pay for the domain every year. I should probably look into that at some point. I guess I have been micro-sharing about life often enough that it felt sufficient. But sometimes life throws things at you that need a little more than a few photos and a paragraph.
Like your dad dying.
I joined the Dead Dad Club on Sunday. It was unexpected in that we weren’t expecting it, but I have been saying for quite a while that I would not be surprised to get the phone call from either parent about the other one at any time. It was fast. He went into the hospital after a wound went septic on Wednesday night and was gone four days later. He was extremely well cared for by a medical team who did literally everything they could to save him. Yet it was absolutely horrific to witness.
I know everyone with even semi-decent parents who they love expects to feel sad when a parent dies. Sadness does not even scratch the surface of what this feels like. It is abject, gut-wrenching agony. It is body-wracking, screaming sobs out of seemingly nowhere. It is a desolation of the soul that is hard to describe. Grief this deep is literally the full and complete absence of happiness. Even in the moments when I’m okay-ish, I feel numb. Which I guess is better than feeling all the bad things right now. I’ll take the numbness.
I will live out the rest of my life with my father’s last words haunting me in my mind every single day: “Rachel, help me.” I will see him looking me in the eye and nodding, with a terrified look on his face, as I told him to be strong for just a few more minutes so his youngest brother could get to the hospital to see him. I will hear myself saying to my daddy that it was okay for him to rest now. I will know that when my father’s life ended I had my forehead pressed to his, telling him over and over how much I love him, while my mother held his hand and my brother had his hand on his shoulder. And that I asked the nurse to leave the warming blanket on him after they got all the wires and monitors disconnected and got a hospital gown on him, because I didn’t want him to be cold while we waited for the funeral home to come pick him up. And that I spent the vast majority of that time draped across the hospital bed with my arms around him and my head on his chest.
I hate knowing how this feels. And I don’t know how to act or what to do with myself. I am simultaneously extremely sensitive and completely irreverent. I have a very dark sense of humor in the best of times. But now that my father is dead? Oh we are in Vantablack territory. I am fairly insufferable on a good day, so I can definitely see people taking a huge step back from me in this current state. Which is the diametric opposite of what I want and need. I need to know that the people who care about me will continue to care about me even if it is harder right now. Grief is messy and uncomfortable and awkward, and I need people to be okay with being messy and uncomfortable and awkward and to stick it out with me and just let me hurt. But don’t let me hurt alone.
My one saving grace right now is my husband. He lost both his parents fairly close together, both in traumatic ways, and he can relate to me in a way I couldn’t relate to him when they died. He knows this deep pain and angst times two. He lets me cry, rage, shut down, scream, get mad over my chicken sandwich not being included in my DoorDash order, and know that it’s not about the sandwich. He has been endlessly patient with my occasionally biting comments or bad jokes or inability to filter myself currently. My dad was a second father to him for 20 years. He showed him how to be a good husband and father because he didn’t have the best example of those things when he was younger. My father was instrumental in helping my husband mend his relationship with his own father, and I know my husband is grateful for that. He is experiencing a huge loss in his own right, but still finds a way to hold this space for me right now when I need it to be held most.
I can’t eat. Food tastes like cardboard. I can’t sleep. The nightmares come then. I shut down during the day when I know I have so much to do. The thousand yard stare is better than feeling anything right now. It has only been four days and I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime.
I don’t know what I’m hoping to accomplish with this. So I guess I’m done for the time being.