blank spots

Years ago I thought I should write a book. Pretty sure that I cornered the market on grief, and experience, and thoughtfulness. At the same time that Melissa died, I found out that one of my oldest friends' best friend also died in a car wreck. Hers being sudden, shocking.  Mine was 2 years coming, watching, waiting, hoping.  Two different experiences, both resulting in horrible wrenching grief. The feeling of being left behind. Guilt. Sadness like you never felt before.

Since then I've known so much grief, either my own or that of others. And I realized now I never cornered the market. Grief is a blanket true, that you can hold around yourself tight. It's always there to remind you of your sadness and also that there's a reason for it for the sadness. And that reason you never want to let go or forget.

My dad died. September 7th 2021. It's now almost Thanksgiving, tomorrow. He was 93, he had a long good life. But there's so much now that I didn't ask him or that we never really had a conversation about. And I truly wish I had, but those were the questions that I just couldn't make into words. And he clearly had his own thought process and questions and ways that he wanted to live his life and person that he thought he was. I look at it as a daughter through daughter's eyes, wondering how he became the man he was. Like I see through my mommy eyes the person that my daughter is becoming because somewhat of the person I am too. I am who I am because of my parents, because of my dad. I had him on a pedestal a bit.  There were things that he did, personality traits or things that I grabbed onto when I was young that I thought were worthy. Now I see a little bit more of the blinders that I had on, he was on a pedestal and my putting him there, I ignored the other things that maybe helped shape him but that were sad or hard or things that he wished he'd done that he never did. We never talked about that stuff.  But he had a big part of making me who I am. As I have a big part of making who my daughter is and who she's becoming. I miss my dad. He was a good man. And I was very lucky to have someone like that in my life. But there's a lot of blank spots.

So I don't corner the market on grief. I do I think have a pretty good knowledge of what it is how it works and why we go through it. I don't like it, it's not my friend. But then in the end it's the comforting that grief allows. It's big and it's all consuming and it can feel stifling and it can feel like it's going to suffocate, but then when you accept it and fall into it and hold it around you it warms you and comforts you.  What the hell do you do with that.  'come on in, I hate you so much, but please give me a hug'.