Hey guys, first off I just wanted to say thanks for all the kind words. It meant a lot.
It's a new year now and I always start every new year with a bunch of idealistic notions and one of the things I wanted to try and tackle was these mixed emotions I've been dealing with, so if you don't mind reading a bit (as in, a lot probably) I'd like to write some about what happened.
So to start out, my dad had been struggling off and on for nearly a decade with prostate cancer. It was something that went on so long it kind of faded into the background but was still always present in everyone's mind. The last few years it had finally started to win and his health had started to decline at an increased rate, but in the end it wasn't the cancer that killed him, It was actually a complication from it. A massive blood clot that traveled from his leg to his lungs.
The day my father died, my mother called me sometime before noon and said that he was a little worse than usual and was having some trouble breathing. One of the many, many, "What ifs?" that have been circling in my brain since that day was what if we had called the paramedics the very moment the said that. But instead we went over to visit and while my dad was a bit more out of it than usual, he didn't seem to be in any immediate distress. So we told my mom to keep an eye on him and if his condition worsened, to call an ambulance. Well, later on that night, that is exactly what happened.
I got a text later on after midnight saying that they took him in cause he was having even more trouble breathing. Not long after I got another text saying that things were getting worse and if I could get there, I should. I quickly threw on some clothes, and as I was rushing out the door, got the final text saying that he was gone. It happened that fast.
I still went there to see him and my family. The whole experience was very surreal and I was pretty numb throughout.
Since then, I've been struggling with all typical feelings associated with losing someone. Anger, guilt, sadness, depression, and so on. There are days I forget he's even gone, and there are other days where I can't stop thinking of him. I started thinking of my relationship with my dad over the years and realized it probably has a lot to do with all the conflicting feelings I've been having about his passing as well as slowly coming to terms with the circumstances surrounding his passing in regard to more, "what if he did this differently, or that?"
We're doing our best to pick up the pieces of everything left unsaid and unfinished and get on with our lives and some days are like any other day and other days, not so much.
I'm not sure if I'll ever resolve all my issues with everything and there are times that gnaws at me relentlessly but other than that, life is kind of getting back to the day to day.
So that's what's been going on. Sorry if this post is a bit of a downer, and thanks for reading.
