The Day After

Last night, around 6:45pm, my dad (the dapper looking guy above) died.  I sat vigil for nearly a week.  He was clearly dying.  We were administering morphine every two hours.  But it doesn't matter.  When death comes, it feels shocking and sudden.  

Today I begin my walk with grief again.  It was almost exactly six years ago when I met grief up close for the first time when I lost my mom.  I didn't understand death and grief then.  I hated them both.  But, as I have become to know them over the past six years, I have grown to appreciate the lessons they bring.  I have said many times that death and I are friends now.  That doesn't mean you don't get really mad at your friends now and then.

As most of you know, I am a grief counselor.  I am a Death Midwife.  This is MY work.  I live Death and Grief.  But that doesn't mean that I don't feel pain when they arrive in my life (or the lives of others).  That doesn't mean that I don't question lots of things and feel angst over the way this whole human experience works.

Nonetheless, one of the things I definitely know is how to walk this path.  I don't know where it will lead me this time.  I know it's full of twists and turns and lots and lots of hot coals.  But I know I must walk it.  And so, today, I begin.  

Today begins, what I call, The Year of Firsts.  All the Firsts that will come without my dad.  It begins with waking up for the first time without my dad on this Earth.  Hey, look, I did that!  :)  This is the first morning I've been home since last Monday.  Tuesday through Saturday I woke up on a couch or a recliner at my dad's, every two-three hours in order to give him meds.  I generally woke hearing him working harder and harder to breathe.  Today I woke up in silence in my own bed, with my husband and my cats.  And I felt like I had been in a fist fight.  Every muscle hurts. 

I had two mini Milky Way candy bars and a stale Domino's Pizza bread stick for breakfast.  Breakfast of Grievers.  

I've spent the entire morning dealing with death "stuff".  There's so much "stuff" that needs to be handled after someone dies.  And there's still so much stuff to do.  I need to take a shower and then Olly and I are heading to dad's to start the clean up process.  That won't be easy.  But it's not supposed to be easy.  It is simply part of this process.

This is a whole new grieving process.  I am officially an adult orphan.  That's a fascinating place to be in the world.  I feel too young to be without parents.  Even though my dad and I had switched roles over the last several years, he was still my dad.  In fact, an interesting anecdote about that.  Dad had been lingering for two weeks.  Everyone had come to say good-bye.  We had all told him it was okay to go.  I told him I was going to be okay.  But nothing seemed to be setting him free.  There were times we talked and times we were quiet.  Times we touched him and times we didn't.  We did it all.  And then on Friday night, a good friend of mine said to Olly, "Have you told him you're going to take care of Kelli?"  It still makes me cry just thinking of that moment.  On Saturday, I went home for a bit to shower and see my kids.  And Olly had a heart-to-heart with my dad.  He promised him he'd take care of me.  I returned around 5:30, went in and said Hi to dad and then Olly and I settled in for the evening.  I had just poured a glass of wine when I "felt" something.  I turned and walked into dad's room and he wasn't breathing and was pale, but still completely warm.  Of course, we'll never know if he would have died then anyway, but we all felt dad was needing something to release him from his body.  And although I had been his caregiver for the last several years, he was , and always would be, my dad.  Maybe he needed to know someone else was going to take care of his little girl.  I don't know.  

What I know is that my dad is gone.  He and I went through a lot together the last six years.  I talked to him almost every single day.  I will miss that.  I still find myself picking up the phone to call him around 7pm every night.  It will take a while to break that habit.  I've done grief before, but every journey is a new and unique one.  I know and honor that.

I blogged my way through my mom's dying.  This time I intend to blog through grieving both for myself and so people can see it in action.  We don't talk about it enough.  I need to, both personally and professionally.  I hope you'll bear witness to this journey and that somehow it might help when you have to walk your own.

For now, it's time to get showered and get on with Day 1 of this new journey.  I admit, I'm both scared of it and intrigued by where it will take me.