6 MONTHS TODAY

Do you want to know what I did after my dad died?  I looked up the Stages of Grief.  What is this natural order of feelings?  I wanted a list.  I wanted to know that I was "normal."  Do you know why it is hard to find a definite order of grieving list?  Because it doesn't exist.  Sad.  Check.  Devastated.  Check.  Numb.  Check.  Anger. Check.  Acceptance.  Uncheck.  It doesn't work this way.  I wish it did because then I would know what was next and when this roller coaster would be done its heartbreaking-wanting-it-to-stop-but-not-being-able-to-and-closing-my-eyes-and-wanting-this-nightmare-ride-to-be-over-and-it-doesn't-crap-ride... Sigh.  Do you want to know what I did for at least 2 weeks after he died?  I HAD to drink wine in order to sleep or I would think.  Sometimes going through the grief and the thinking is not beneficial.  So whoever says that drinking is not helpful...they are wrong.  It was helpful and I don't regret it.  I would take numbed, buzz feeling anyday over the pictures in my mind.  I left food cooking on the stove, I yelled at my children, I sobbed, I sat and stared, I felt like a different person.  I panicked.  I was lost.
So there is a new me.  A new me who now has reality and it sucks.  I lived in a bubble for 34 years of blissful nothing-can-happen-to-me-or-my-world and I enjoyed it.
There is no order of grief.  There really isn't.  I have started feeling better moving into our new house.  I went through the holidays and I was ok.  I enjoyed my children and enjoyed my life.  But it isn't 100% happy like I felt before.  It never will be again.  There will always be that spot that hurts and grieves and searches for that naive place I used to have but I will be happy.  I will laugh with my children.  I will be thankful and I will love. I do have many, many happy moments in my life.  Right now I am excited about decorating our bedroom into a room that we have waited for for 12 years.  I am living my life and I love my life.  Suddenly I don't feel ok and I am envisioning my dad walking out of his shed.  I am seeing him squeezing his hands because they are numb.  I am seeing him in his chair eating ice cream watching his show.  Or hearing his messages to me on the phone that were erased not too long before he died by Bell Canada and how I long to hear his voice. So there isn't a list.  I will feel ok and that everything is going to be ok and then it isn't.  One of my children mentions him and I turn and cry.  I smell him and I cry.  But I do know that I will continue to live my life, my wonderful life with all of the gifts that I have been given.
Dad, I will see you again.  I know you are around us and watching over us.  I know that you are ok.  I love you and you are still my best dad in the whole world.