A Sort Of Eulogy
My therapist says the amount of grief you feel reflects the amount of love you had for whoever you lost.
August 30th 2022
I woke up around 10am with multiple missed texts and calls from my mom, a couple from my brother, too. My eyebrows shriveled up and my stomach knotted. I called back.
My mom picked up after a couple rings. After our good morning greetings, she says “Are you sitting down? Is someone there for you, or are you alone?” I told her I was laying in my bed and that my partner was next to me. I put her on speaker phone, voice breaking, she said “Your dad passed away this morning.”
Moments passed and my body felt immensely displaced, uncomfortable. I couldn’t stop hurting, crying, pacing, screaming.
I had talked to him just the other day, so it didn’t make sense that he was dead. I didn’t think this would be a month after his 63rd birthday. He would’ve known. He would’ve told someone, I thought.
The whole 2-3 months after his passing are a blur for me. Early September we drove back to Portland because I needed to work. My lack of savings didn’t allow me much space for grieving.
We had a funeral for him at the end of September. There was a classic car show in the parking lot before everyone sat down. He built his career as a mechanic from the ground up surrounding something he loved. I never understood it, but it was sweet, inspiring, strange.
I took fireball shots with my siblings before the service. Then I spoke, reading the short eulogy I wrote. Every second of it felt suffocating, like my heart was covered in tar.
The day after, I went wine tasting with a couple others. There were strange, sad, distracting laughs. Then we drank more. We ran around the playground of my old elementary school- later I escaped to fall asleep on the couch.
I couldn’t eat anything the next day. I vomited in the car on our ride home, on a floor mat driving up the 405. I had more of these days. I wondered how people have healthy relationships with their vices- when there is a gaping hole begging to go unseen.
I now know this grief will be with me my whole life. My therapist says the amount of grief you feel reflects the amount of love you had for whoever you lost. She’s right, but it’s uncomfortable. I cried each day until December.
The massive stomachache cries don’t stop and sometimes the sadness comes in like it’s day one. Sometimes I’ll get so mad at him for dying, and then I get mad at myself. I get so mad at anyone who might have hurt him, and then I get mad at myself. I get angry and I get sad and I get angry and I get sad and and and.
I accepted years ago that I don’t know what happens when you die, and have felt fairly okay with that, comfortable in fact. Now, there’s this lingering question in my mind of where he could be. Maybe his soul found somewhere else, or maybe it has disappeared.
At some point you must become tired. At some point the life you’ve lived comes to an end and we cannot control it.
I can’t pretend to be positive about it- life involves suffering. It was his time to go and maybe he was in more pain than anyone knew.
Rest in peace, Dad.