The wake tonight had a great turnout, and it was wonderful to see so many familiar faces. Seeing dad was much less wonderful, as he still looked quite bloated and just generally not himself. I wanted to touch his forehead, his hair, but nothing is the same. nothing is there.
It sucks.
You know, growing up, I always approached life like a big road trip. You have short-term destinations and long-term ones and the only way to make sure you really do it right is to talk to other people about their experiences, what’s worth doing and what isn’t. When you find yourself in new territory, you ask the locals what you should do. That’s just how things are done. I’ve ended relationships (many, in fact) based on conversations with unhappily married people. I ruled out law school because I’ve never been able to shake the imprint in my brain of one customer’s tired eyes. This guy, Lee, never looked satisfied with his life and although many people practice law happily, those are not the people I met when I was planning my trip to collegeville so I didn’t include that curriculum in my itinerary. True or not, I feel that listening to other people (especially older/more experienced onces) and really internalizing what they have to say has saved me a lot of grief over the years.
So of course, my strongest instinct right now is to talk to other people who have had similar experiences. Let me be your student; tell me what to do/feel/think so that I can get to the happier place as quickly as possible. Show me the shortcuts so I can look at pictures of my complete family and feel happy instead of devastated.
But after talking to several people it’s clear that these things don’t really work that way. I keep trying to approach this as a perspective instead of a process, and I’m beginning to realize that that’s not right. It seems as though grieving is much more like a train ride than a road trip. You can call people and tell them what the scenery looks like and they’ll say, “yeah, that’s about right” and tell you what you’ll see at the next stops but that preview does nothing to speed the trip along. There aren’t shortcuts. There’s a starting point and a destination and an indeterminate number of stops between the two. You don’t get to tell the train what to do. You just have to wait it out.
I think accepting that is the first stop. Maybe now I just have to figure out what to do on the train. I guess I’m going to start by reading the book I sent my dad when his mom died. But anyhow, that’s where I am today. The funeral is tomorrow and we’ll see how that goes.
P.S. you can check out dad’s online obituary if you want.