Warning. This contains profanities for which I’m not apologetic.
It’s been a year.
One really long, short year.
A year I didn’t think I would survive. A year I didn’t want to survive. The last 24th of May, I was in benidorm, in a whirlwind of emotion, caught in the grips of sudden grief. I can remember getting in the lift from the ICU and seeing mine and my mums faces. I recall looking in the mirror and seeing the utter anguish staring back at us. Mouths that couldn’t get anymore upturned. Eyes that couldn’t produce any more tears, puffy and red, with a thousand mile stare that said we had just witnessed some horror. I don’t remember breathing that day. It was like the oxygen had been sucked out of the atmosphere, threatening to suffocate us, just as fate had suffocated dad.
There are moments since dad became ill that will never leave my consciousness, or my subconscious for that matter. Most times when I think of him, when I talk about him, when recalling a sweet memory, I get a jolt from one of those scenes from the hospital. The broken English. The silence. The monitors. The feel of his cold hand in mine as I tried desperately to heat it up, trying to will him to life. These are things that are too painful to think about, to harrowing to put into spoken words. They haunt me almost daily as if life were some cruel joke.
I feel anger, a lot. I’m angry at myself, I’m angry at God, at the world, at happy people, people with dad’s and grandparents. I wish I wasn’t angry. I wish this didn’t all feel so unfair.
I feel so selfish for still being in this place. I feel like I’m wallowing in self pity. Others have it worse than me and my pain doesn’t feel valid or justified. I don’t know the socially acceptable time for grief to last, but I feel I’ve exceeded it. I think my friends see me as a broken record, stuck, unable to move on from something that is inevitable. Everybody dies.
But why some and not others? I hate the cliche remarks people make. It angers me. I know it’s said from a place of love but say this to me and you may well feel my wrath. Am I the only one who gets angry at this? Am I selfish?
At least he isn’t in pain anymore. – oh well that makes it all fucking better then doesn’t it! God only takes the good ones – well fuck god then, he’s a bastard. He’s in a better place – no he fucking isn’t. He’s dead. He’s no more. He’s gone. He is none the wiser and we have to deal with the loss. He wouldn’t want you to be sad – we’ll I am. What the fuck is he going to do about it! You have to think of the positives – point me in the direction of the pissin positive please!!!
I’ve spent the day doing positive things with my mum and brother. Laughing and cheering them up. Reminiscing about dad and the happy memories we shared. On the drive home I felt the anger creeping in. I heard the intrusive thoughts start to cloud my judgement. Telling me that I should have cried today. I have cried so many times in the last year. I’ve circled back to anger. Will I sit with it? Will I accept it? Or will I try to cut it out of myself? Grief is a parasite that feeds on my fucked up brain. Do I learn to become symbiotic or do I fight it and eradicate it from my mind. Stay tuned to find out as I spend the next 2 days alone, pondering my options. Life isn’t for the feint of heart…
Fed up of the heartbreak – Violet xx
Shrink(ing) Violet 