Day 43: Anything Could Happen
When our people die, anything could happen.
In early grief, I am finding a pattern of death awareness to bone fatigue on repeat.
I’m so aware of dying. It’s not a fear of death itself…mostly wanting to be sure I don’t die so my 5 year old doesn’t have another one on her hands. Her parents’ marriage died, then her fish, Rainbow, died, and then her beloved Bapa died. It’s enough.
I didn’t let my trusted doctor adjust my neck. I proceeded out of the driveway more slowly. As if any of these are things that can actually stave off death. As if my dad had any control over getting pancreatic cancer and dying—in 4 months, going from bike riding with my kid to having her place bunny stuffed animals on him in the hospital.
I wonder if I explained cancer well enough to my daughter so people in her life don’t just drop dead. But then, isn’t that what death is–someone is here, and then in a moment, they are not.
I’m so aware of dying and then all of the sudden it fades into a bone fatigue so immense, so weighty. I understand why my clients think they are depressed. Yet it seems quite different. For me it’s the weight of this new reality that is deeply unreal. It is the constant tension of the knowing and not knowing. It is the fatigue of living in two simultaneous worlds, both not quite right. And that all takes a lot of energy that cannot be seen from the outside.
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