I'm smiling because it's almost too much. Almost but my brain hasn't really reacted in the way I've expected... yet. The one year anniversay approaches. I know I'm dreading it, I mean who wouldn't. I know that I should plan some "grieving" time but I'm not ready to think about that today (Thanks Scarlett O'Hara).
Last Monday I found out my father had leukemia. By the time Friday rolled around, he was really sick. I left on Sunday to go visit him in the hospital and wound up staying until Tuesday evening. When I got there Sunday he looked ok. Had a bit of patechia on his back and upper arms. By Monday evening it had spread all over his chest and Tuesday morning it spread up his neck to his face, and his liver and kidneys weren't doing well so his skin and eyes had a yellow cast. I know he is not a dog, but in the animal hospital, if a pet had everything going on that Daddy did, we'd be hoping the owner would put the pet out of it's misery.
I don't want my dad to suffer. And I stayed with him in the hospital room on Monday night. I've not spent the night with a patient before. The hospital people come in every couple of hours to take vitals and blood and make sure you are ok. Daddy rested really well, and I only had to help him with bathroom things once (other than hand him the urine bottle thing they measure his output with).
The one time I had to help him he kept saying that for all the time he changed my diaper and wiped my bottom, he never EVER thought I'd have to help him out like that. I'm not sure who it was odder for. I really didn't mind, it's one of those things, that I had never thought about doing... but you just do it.
I keep thinking I'm ok. I know in the great scheme of things I will be ok. I don't know where this holding on to stuff came from. I didn't grow up holding things in. I was always the "sensitive" one. I cried at the drop of a hat. I let it all out as soon as it came in.
I feel the tears building up. they won't come out. I keep thinking if Allen was still alive, I'm not sure which Allen would be with me. Sometimes if he was wrapped up in himself, he would get angry when I got upset about sick people in other states. I don't know if he'd still be that way. I had a couple of family deaths not too long after we'd been married. My grandfather died the day we got back from our honeymoon. It was my Daddy's Dad. Allen wouldn't ask off work for the funeral because he'd just been off for a week.
I can't even remember if he went to the funeral home with me.
The next death that was close to me was my Big Mama. She was sick for months. I don't remember how many, it was probably just two, but it felt like forever. She died a few years after my Dad's dad. She was diabetic, and had a blood clotting disease. She had her legs removed and never left the hospital. She died exactly the way she told me she would for years and years. She told me she'd have to have her legs removed and then she would die. She skipped the part about holding on for many, weeks and us getting to watch her slowly die. But in a nutshell it was just the way she said it would be.
The fact that I drove over to Alabama (we lived in MS at the time) everytime the doctors said they didn't think she'd live until the morning almost caused us to get a divorce. He had never lost anyone close to him like that before. He didn't like me leaving him alone so much. I never regretted going.
He did attend the viewing for an hour or so and then came to the funeral. He stayed with his parents and I stayed with my Big Mama's body all night with my mom and siblings. It was what she had asked us to do.
I don't know what my Dad wants. I don't know that he really cares about anything in particular. I don't want him to suffer, but it's kind of scary to think that soon he's not going to be just a phone call away. He isn't really now, I don't think he could hear me well enough if I did call to tell him something.
I feel a flood of emotions building up, but I have no idea how to get them to come out. I have some theories, and will practice them at some point. I've never been this person who kept things inside... it's kind of weird.
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