Retracing my footsteps in grief.

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” - Anne Lamott

2/5/2014

I see the day coming like a freight train. As we approach the year anniversary, I find myself retracing the moments of that day.

I remember feeling such relief when the first early phone call came - the office was closing for the second day in a row. The snow was still thick on the road, and I was excited to close my eyes and fold myself back into my bed.
 

We had been practically living at the hospital for the previous ten days. Now, Dad was finally back home, and I was safe and warm in my bed. I did not have to go to KU Med. I did not have to drive downtown in the 14 inches of snow. I could stay in my bed - safe from harm.
 

The second phone call changed my life. I made Evan say it at least three times. Come home, he said. The doctor called. And Dad has just days left. I knew it wasn't a joke, but I still kept making him repeat it. I made him promise me it was the truth.

The drive was a blur. The roads were empty, and the snow deep. I felt numb.

I remember kneeling next to the recliner and Dad telling me that he was done fighting. I remember holding his hand, and kissing his head, and crying. He seemed just as surprised to be saying it as I was to be hearing it.

He made jokes. He made requests. We planned his funeral. Together.

We made calls - frantic calls. We felt desperate for support.

We huddled in groups crying and tried to keep him from seeing how messy and unraveled we were all becoming. The house started filling with loved ones, and at one point he even joked, "Is this the pre-party?"

I spent hours listening to the instructions of the hospice nurse. She ordered medicine, she told us what to expect. I sat at the table trying to listening carefully to her instructions, even though I wanted to be in the other room with him.

Friends visited. Food was dropped off. Facebook statuses were updated. Love expressed. Tears shed.

And, even though it was supposed to be coming... we didn't see it coming that evening. They had said days. He was just making a joke, and then - boom. The house erupted into panic and disorder - screaming and sobbing and shock. He was gone. I heard him tell the dog to be quiet, and then it overtook him. Suddenly and without warning. Not like the quiet, painful death they had been describing to us all day. He was with us - and then he wasn't.

A couple images cross my mind daily - my brother screaming out the front door, Pam picking me up off of the floor, Gary yelling down the street for my cousins to leave the kids in the car. And then the look on Matt's face. He was too late.

It was one of the most painful experiences of my life, yet I find myself searching for details of the day in my thoughts regularly. I have to remember the order in which it all happened, or somehow I don't honor him, or care, or have control over it. And, I like control.

This year has been an unending spiral of events that have forced me to let go of my expectations and simply breathe.

One day at a time.