Dear John, Grandpa died

 Dear John,

I've wanted to let these words out for a while now, they've been burning inside my head, and at 1:38 a.m., they need to be set free.  I haven't been sleeping well.  Obviously.  The audible books and medication can't keep out the thoughts lately, and it seems that the window of 2:00 - 5:00 a.m. has become my nemesis.  I think the culmination of triggers lately has pushed my brain into a frenzied state and it's going wild at night.  The sadness, guilt, and frustration are at their peak in the wee hours and I am subject to their mercy. The current trigger, in addition to Grandpa's death, was being told I was "handling it well".  Handling the death of my father WELL??  Indeed, how does one handle death well?  Do you have any idea what that day was like?  Read on.

I am assuming what was meant was I am handling it with a startling lack of emotion.  If they only knew.  Yes, outwardly I am going through the motions and every single wall is up.  Up REALLY high.  If they only knew what it's like to touch your child's cold body and still get up every day.  To watch your dad die and think how envious you are when he gets to see you and everyone else in that glorious reunion while you get to stay and relive watching him die and not being able to do anything.  To raise the bed up and lower the bed down every few minutes for a couple hours, at his discretion, in the hope that it would help him be able to breathe while you wait for the morphine to kick in, to help him "settle".   To ask for oxygen - to lift his body up while he chokes on medicine, feeling him rigid beneath your hands, fighting for a breath, fighting for life, and not being able to help him.  To try and decipher his frantic words to you, words that you can't understand because, between the morphine, the phlegm in his throat, and his panic, he can't make you understand.  

To have to tag team with Katie because neither one of you thinks you can sit by his bed and watch it unfold for one more minute.  To be horrified that while you've watched your mother and your sister die, and you've found your son deceased . . she has not.  That this is her first time witnessing a crossing over and it's not beautiful.  To know that she had to go to her car to take a beat.  To know that she can't handle this, but needs to be there for me, and for him, but that it is going to once again affect her life in ways I cannot erase.  To know that she couldn't sleep in a bed that night, but stayed on the couch with all the lights on and the TV on because she was so completely traumatized. Handling it well. Yeah.  

I've been pouring myself into cleaning out his house because I have to sell it within six months - to pay back medical assistance, and because I don't know what else to do to keep me from driving to the nursing home.  So, the house I've basically been avoiding since 2009 when Grandma died, has now become my full-time job.  Every Christmas ornament, Snowbaby, hatpin, dough boy, and dish.  Every collectible plate, toy car, toy truck, gas pump, and belt buckle - every item they so diligently collected and displayed - packed up and sent to auction.  Every picture, shoe, and piece of clothing.  The wooden turtle that lived on the end table, the spices dating back further than just the red and white McCormick, the VHS Disney tapes - A Christmas Story, Dirty Dancing, and The Color Purple.  The endless insurance papers and folders from the Cancer Center.  Every little piece of their lives passes through my hands and into boxes, dumpsters, or trucks.  Pictures you drew of tanks and guns and flags . . box after box of photographs and snippets of the last 58 years in that house.  Handling it well . . .

You've all taught me to stuff it down deep and lock it away.  To pretend as best as I can that it doesn't bother me every single moment of every single day - because the world can't handle the grief, so we shouldn't feel it.  We should focus on the good, be grateful, count our blessings, help others, blah blah blah. If we are angry, that's a problem.  If we are inconsolable, we need help.  If we are handling it too well, we are heartless or unfeeling.  We can't win.  

I got a message yesterday from a loss mom who is wondering how to keep living after the traumatic death of her daughter.  Wondering why her friends and family have abandoned her.  Why all they say is maybe you should talk to someone or shouldn't you be moving on?  Aren't you so thankful for the child you are now raising for your dead daughter?   Honestly, people, have a heart.  Surround her with love and compassion.  Ignoring her pain won't make it go away - it'll compound it.  She's wallowing in despair and asking a total stranger how to keep getting up and trying to live another day, and you're ignoring her because it's easier for you.  Maybe in your glorious existence and happy times you could shoot her a text and tell her you're thinking about her, about her daughter, about the little boy who is growing up without a mother.  

I guess she's not handling it well, so turn the page - 

I don't know how long she's been in it, but I'm guessing it's pretty fresh.  Fresh enough that she hasn't learned the coping skills needed to get by - to handle it well.  I told her she needs boundaries - or it'll crush her.  Apparently, when you've adopted a stoic enough demeanor, you've graduated from not handling it well to handling it like a champ.  Oh if they only knew.  

So, John, I told Grandpa that ya'll were waiting to see him.  Katie prayed, your dad told him what a great father-in-law he had been and how much he loved and appreciated him.  We did what we could, humanly, to comfort him and be with him, and I am glad that he is not sitting in the lift chair watching TV in the nursing home.  I'm glad that he can once again enjoy the feast and dump the pudding.  I'm happy that I know where he is and whose he is.  I'm happy that he is no longer starving to death and filled with cancer.  I'm grateful that God saw fit to answer my prayer and let me keep him for seven more years after his terminal diagnosis, which came one month before you died.   But now he's gone, and you're gone and I am still here and that doesn't make me happy.  

She asked how I dealt with the anger.  I wonder if she knows that anger is grief.  That being irritable is part of the deal.  That laying awake at night wondering what you could have done differently is hopeless but inevitable.  Talk to someone they say to her - like, go get your head shrunk.  Ever wonder where that phrase comes from?  Well, here's your answer.  It's from the ancient practice of literally shrinking the head of your enemy. I think a grief counselor would be a better bet.  Preferably someone who lost a child in a devasting manner and who has had several years to learn how to handle it well.

So John, instead, she's reading my blogs and she's thankful that she found some words that resonate.  That she's not crazy, she's devastated.  That all of this is horribly normal, unfortunately, and all she has to do is learn how to handle it well.  Easy Peasy!  Snark.  I hope I can help her and give her a place to vent, to be understood and supported.  To let her know she's not alone, to know that what she's hearing and experiencing is truly that awful and that people have absolutely no idea what she is going through.  That the stress she's under can cause a myriad of secondary problems.  (Did I tell you I have an auto-immune situation going on?  Thanks stress.)  That handling it well basically means handling it inside yourself - thereby eating away at your health.  Your sleep.  Your sanity.  But proving to the outside world that YOU ARE HANDLING IT WELL!  Give this griever a round of applause!  

She's going to have to learn that while no good thing came of her daughter's death - she's going to have to learn that people want to see her grateful and thriving - but balancing all of it so that she doesn't appear to be handling it too well because that's downright shameful.  Where is your sadness?  Does this make any sense to anyone?  Stop being so judgemental of grief.  Stop saying things to keep us up at night wondering WTH you mean!  

We are doing the best we can.  You aren't with us 24/7 - so stop making assumptions as to how we are handling it.  It's none of your business.  We don't need to be critiqued in our coping skills, we need to be supported in whatever our current mindset is.  We don't need fixing, advice, or speculation.  You have absolutely no idea what this feels like.  If you did, you wouldn't be offering your two cents.

Grief is exhausting John.  Missing you is exhausting. People are exhausting.  I told her most days I steer clear of people. Especially if I'm feeling vulnerable.  When I'm in that situation, I can so easily enter into a fight/flight situation.  The panic of wanting to get away from a conversation or situation can be overwhelming.  If I stay, I'm bound to say or hear something I wish I hadn't.  It's been a while since we had a lengthy conversation about your death and your struggle. But it came up the other night with friends.  I could feel myself withdrawing and the feeling of wanting to get out was creeping up fast.  I gave your dad a nudge, but he wasn't ready to stop talking yet, and it flipped that trigger in my head.  I literally feel like I go into zombie mode - and I can feel myself checking out. I do my best to hide it, to stay engaged, but inside I'm ready to erupt.  

My ways of dealing with it have changed over the years.  It used to be tears.  They've all dried up with the Lexapro.  I rarely ever cry anymore.  And when I do it's at the end of the dock or in the shower.  Now I handle my emotions through isolation and distraction.  So it doesn't surprise me to hear that I'm handling it well, because you are no longer allowed into the courtyard of my old battered mind castle where my feelings are heavily guarded - and if you see me lose it, just usher me into a safe space, alone, and close the door, or I'll probably bite your head off.  We become the Great Pretenders.  

Well, it's now 3:38 and I'm pretty sure I have a bladder infection, along with the aches and pains of an unfortunate fall the other day.  I wish I had it on video, the fall. I'm sure you couldn't have made it up if you tried.  So utterly embarrassing.  I twisted my ankle going down the stairs while helping carry out my mom's dollhouse and I fell into it face-first so hard and fast I can't really remember it. But dang it hurt!  I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired - but hopefully, I can get to a place where my stress is much reduced and my sleeping is back to blissful.  

I miss you, John.  Give Gramps a hug for me and tell him I've got this and I'm so glad he made it!  His race is over.  His worries are over.  I love you guys - Mom.