one of the weirdest things about grief and death is the concept of time. after you lose someone, time simultaneously moves both fast and slow and there’s no explaining it any other way except that. the days drag on and yet you can’t believe they have passed. it’s been 8 months now, since my dad died and it both feels like it was yesterday and feels like it’s been forever. time is something as humans we’re always chasing after. we don’t have enough time, we have too much time on our hands, we don’t have time management skills, etc etc. it’s always about time and timing.
i walked by a mural of pictures my mom made for me when i moved to NY so i would have some familiar faces in an unfamiliar place. most of the pictures were taken right before i moved there, around 2008 or so, so they’re almost 10 years old. i looked at the pictures of my siblings and i, on the beach in anguilla, my mom with her horses and my dad playing his bass. i noticed that 3 of the pets – our dog holly, our cat felix, and haley’s dog chico – have since died as well. i looked at all of these pictures, settling on the photo of my dad playing the bass and the thought that kept coming to mind was “i just wish we had more time.”
but what is enough time? is 33 years enough? and all that time i spent away in NY, and all that time i spent angry at him, angry that he was so controlling, angry that he could sometimes be so mean, and angry that he couldn’t change. that was all time away from him. time that kept me apart. but i know i can’t dwell on that. i did the best i could with what i had. and that has to be enough. the craziest thing about death is how final it is. he was here one day, and not the next. i didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, or make peace, or learn a lot of things i had been dying to know or ask him but was too afraid too. and now the time it up.
i think all this is brought on by thanksgiving and the upcoming holidays, something else that’s creeping up along with everything else. time. so how can i use this experience? how can i learn from this, and better spend my time? this is the only life we get (that we know of) so i want to make the best of it. i want to have the relationships and do the things and spend the time that i want to spend with people. i want to meet someone and get married and have kids before my time is up, before my mom’s time is up so she gets to be a grandparent, something she so desperately wants but depends upon us. but how, how to do this while i’m still stuck in a bit of a grief depression rut? i have to find the strength to pick myself up off of the couch.
the quote we picked for dad’s funeral announcement was from the queen song “the show must go on.” and i know he’s looking down telling me the same. but it’s hard.
