Saturday, June 22, 2002
Friday and Saturday
The days keep pushing forward and I find it amazing. How is it
that the sun can keep rising and papers be delivered and lawns get mowed and
groceries be purchased? How is it that everything hasn’t stopped? Why
haven’t I stopped?
The permanence of it all is finally settling in. Since I
received that phone call in Kinsale, I’ve dreamed of my father every night. In
each dream he’s been alive, but in varying stages of illness. Last night I
dreamed he was close to the end. It’s as though each evening I’m being
prepared for the new horror of the resulting waking hours, the slow realization
that this is it. He’s not coming home ever again. He’ll never laugh with me
again, he’ll never hug me again, we’ll never share a meal together or watch
a Chaplin film. We’ll never tag team my mother with an inside joke and I’ll
never ever be able to tell him I love him again.
It’s over, but I’m not ready yet. I’m just not ready.
Hula left for home yesterday morning and I’ve booked a flight
for myself tomorrow. My brother will be around for the next few days as he lives
close by, and then my mother will leave for Vermont to visit with family there.
Much like the day of the funeral when I couldn’t bear to close my eyes and
have it be over, a memory, I don’t want this visit to end. I’m clinging to
it in a futile attempt to cling to him. It makes no sense, I know. But I have no
idea how to do this.
When mother left me alone in the house for the first time as she
ran an errand, I opened his closet door and hugged all of his flannel shirts.
Almay’s Amazing Lash Waterproof mascara really is waterproof.
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