Mid-April to mid-May is an incredibly hard time of year for me. What was just the time between when I lost my father and his birthday now bookends the day I lost my grandmother. While she has been gone for almost a year, I have been able to be at peace with it. It still stings. There are days I cry or want to call her for advice but I got to see her a few weeks before she passed and at 85, I know she lived a full life filled with family and friends who adored her. She had a beautiful service that I am only a little salty about (because, I am an asshole and will find something to be salty over) that was well attended and allowed for some closure.
My dad was 56. A month and 4 days from 57 if we want to get technical (and I ALWAYS want to get technical). He died in a nursing rehabilitation center in Arizona in the very early morning following a night I ignored the nagging part of me that told me to call him. He died after making plans with his medical proxy to meet the next day so he could dictate a letter to me - Because he knew the end was near once the dialysis stopped working but didn't want to tell me. He was not a well man for the majority of my life. I saw him through back and eye operations, toe amputations, leg amputations, the first round of dialysis that he rebounded from and was able to cease treatment, and one hell of a case of diabetes that he finally managed down to pills from multiple insulin shots a day. He was able to recognize his wrongs and how inappropriate his actions were with some. He was my Superman.
We had THE talk - not about sex but the what are your wishes talk. He told me he was fine with going to a mass grave so I wouldn't be burdened with planning services. I protested and he agreed to cremation. In the 6 years since his passing, I have never received the remains. His medical proxy changed her last name, moved to a different state, and I have since not been able to find her. The lack of closure and guilt consumes me, especially at this time of year. I didn't want to put on a large funeral for him but I did want to bring him home to Hawai'i to rest. I know he wanted that and as his only child it is my job to fulfill that. It may not be my fault, but I have failed to do the most humane thing possible - I have not been able to help him rest at peace where he wanted to.
I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering what was going to be in that letter. I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering if or how either of them could have been proud of me when I feel like the subtitle to my life story is "34 Years of Failing." It leaves me wondering why I focus so hard on how I could have lived/could currently live to make others happy instead of myself. Would she have been happier or more proud if I had been a teacher? Would he have been happier or more proud if I had opened a Hawaiian catering business like he wanted me to? Will I ever be able to feel like I made them proud? Other than because I have every awful and almost every good trait of a Leo, WHY DOES IT MATTER?
I daydream about opening a sweets shop: one with baked goods and homemade candy and ice cream. I daydream about writing. I daydream about a life where there isn't a gaping hole in my chest that only seems to grow larger every year as more loss and lost time accumulates. I daydream of a world where depression and anxiety don't paralyze me with fear to the point I don't know how to live for myself. And when those daydreams fade I drown in reality, sinking further and further away from who i could be. I fall deeper and deeper into a world of what ifs. I feel to far in to ever resurface as a whole human.
Hug those you love. Tell them you love them. Mourn them when they go. But don't fall to this depth. Remember to live for you.
