Am I a Selfish Child?

I couldn’t watch them bury him.

There wasn’t enough time. I didn’t have enough time. Even if our time was longer, I wouldn’t know how to prepare for it. So I shut down.

It feels like a design flaw in the blueprints of life – that the people we need and love SO much – people you know will be whoever, wherever,whenever you need them to be – can be gone in an instant.

I’ve heard people describe it a multitude of times – using the same words I do now – and assumed it would prepare me for it when the time came. I’ve lost family and mourned in my own ways.

But losing a parent is HARD. The spirit of the nuclear family is unique. That “I’m on my way, no matter what – even though I told you this was a bad idea but we can talk about that later” essence is a heartstring with exposed nerve endings. And it can just be ripped away.

No one on this earth can convince me that consciousness isn’t tangible. That we aren’t bound by extrasensory tendrils that keep us safe and calm. And I know none of this is new. But at the same time ALL of this is new. Loss is new every time.

I’ve never felt loss like I did with my dad. I don’t understand how touch the place where it hurts. The left and right sides of my brain are still trying and failing to make sense of it 8 months later, so I don’t think I’ve even come to terms with it.

All of this amplified by the fact that he didn’t have to be anybody to me. He accepted me. I have so many vestiges of fear-filled memories and all I ever felt is safe and understood. He was brilliant and jolly and he liked to take stuff apart and I was there for all of it. Mom says that somehow I was his child.

Then it hit me that I gotta do it again. I don’t know when, but I do know that the logical me and the emotional me are both trying to be practical about an impractical situation neither of them has any experience in.

I’ve been trying to communicate more freely and address issues as they come up so I spend as little time as possible sour, or frustrated or angry with her. I was at the nursing home the day before he lost consciousness and I was so annoyed that I had to take time out of my packed day of doing NOT SHIT to bring him something he needed. That’s the energy I left him with.

I said all of that to say that I’m petrified that before I learn how to navigate this treacherous and magical world, she’ll be gone too.

And I can’t let Avery go through this. The tingling in my joints. The laundry lists of diagnoses and medications. The fatigue. The fat. It’s all got to go. I need to be around long enough for him to be able to mourn properly. Once I know how to mourn properly.

I just couldn’t watch them bury my dad.

I went to the hospital and held his hand. I sat at hospice and talked to him.

I wasn’t there when he stopped breathing. I didn’t view his body at the service. I laughed with family. I smiled and hugged. Then I went back home.

I did everything I felt I had to to protect my state of mind.

Was I wrong?