Sunday, June 13, 2010

Waiting

Father’s Day is fast approaching and there is not one single thing I can do about it. This is painful and annoying.

I am taking the children away for the weekend to spend with family. It doesn’t matter. I could take them to the North Pole and it wouldn’t be far enough. I am running away from the neighborhood but no matter where we go – I am still me, the children are the same and there will still be no daddy.

This might be the worst day of the year for us forever. Any other day or any other holiday I can distract the children with something, anything. I can give them presents or cake and hope they will forget, for the moment, that you are dead.

But Father’s Day – there is nothing I can do or say. This is the one day that is all about you – their father – there is no way to get around you being dead this year. Cake is just not going to save me this time – not even a little. This may be the first Father’s Day we have to get through – but this holiday comes every year. I don’t think we will be able to run away every year. Though it sounds appealing. Part of me wants to face the day head on and just deal with the tears and anger or whatever emotions come our way. Another part of me wants to just cry and hide and pretend like this is not happening.

I had therapy on Wednesday and it was maybe the best meeting I have ever had. It was a small group. Although originally I was nervous and worried that with so few people there was no way to hide. In the end, this intimate setting with people who know my story was truly helpful. It reminded me that I need to be in therapy no matter how many good days I have. It reminded me that the rest of the world just doesn’t get me or my pain. Simply the very idea of walking into a room and not having to explain so much of what I go through everyday – is so very helpful all on its own. The way I see it, the rest of the world should stop trying to solve every one of my problems. Instead they should all just count their blessings that they have no idea what it truly feels like to be me.

Over the course of eight months several people I would call acquaintances have confided some of their most painful and awful secrets to me. Maybe they feel like because they know the worst skeleton in my closet they feel more comfortable confiding in me. I don’t know. It humbles me when people choose to share such intimate details with me and I listen and let them talk. Maybe they don’t have many people to share with. Maybe they feel bad for me and want me to know I am not alone in feeling pain in this life.

Yesterday a woman I know sat down beside me in the park and while our children played she told me her suicide story. Her father killed himself when she was 21. We talked about all the guilt and the pain you feel and it was terrible to hear and yet comforting. She is now happily married to a great man and is a wonderful mother. It gave me hope for my children. I asked about her mother and how she dealt with it. Her mom didn’t go to therapy, never remarried and never got over the guilt. Unfortunately, I understood everything her mother went through.

The thing about dealing with death by suicide is that it is just not like any other death. Everyone tells me stories about woman who lost their husbands at a young age, with small children and then they remarried and still had wonderful lives. How did their husband’s die? I will ask. If the reason isn’t suicide I am no longer interested in the rest of the story. Death by natural causes or some terrible accident is of course tragic – but it is not the same to me. I can’t explain it. You just have to be me to understand what I must deal with day after day after awful day; the guilt and sorrow and questions without answers and sadness. Not every death is the same is the same to me anymore.

I have been trying very hard not to think about you this week. I have been trying very hard to focus on my children and myself and deal with my own madness. I have moments where I will laugh and smile and think I am going to someday be O.K. Then I have moments, like today, sitting in the park under a tree looking into the blue sky and my heart is aching for you. I miss you and I hate you and I love you and I am angry and I am sad and I feel terrible awful guilt and I miss you and hate you and love you some more and possibly only thirty seconds went by. This is how I feel most of the time.

So I am waiting for the worst day ever to arrive with anxious stressful anticipation. How will I feel when my children look at me on the day everyone is spending with their daddy and you are dead? How will I feel when they look at me with longing and sad eyes and I have to make them feel better when there is no possible way?

Maybe next year we will go to the cemetery on Father’s Day. Maybe instead of running away we will visit you, but I will definitely bring a huge chocolate cake. Just in case.

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