How I Dealt With My Father’s Death
And How Strongly I Feel the Need to Be There for My Mother
I can’t stop.
I can’t.
I cannot stop crying. I’ve never bawled like this before in my life.
I was forwarding an email to my mother’s email address and all of a sudden I began to cry. She had changed her address recently, so I had to type it in. Contained within it, was her name and how many years she was married to my father before he passed away from esophageal cancer 3 years ago.
A Delayed Response
It was quite strange. I suddenly felt this rush of neurotransmitters flood my brain. Within about 5 seconds, tears were rolling down my cheeks and sounds of mourning were echoing through the hall.
I had been painfully mourning my father’s passing since he was stolen from us by the shell game of life. But I never really focused on how it has affected my mother enough over all this time. It is the 3rd anniversary of his death sometime in November. I didn’t go to the cemetery on the day of his funeral, numbing myself on anything I could get my hands on to completely block out the entire event. Perhaps my subconscious is aware that my parent’s 51st wedding anniversary would have been today and typing in the amount of years my parents had truly been together, 48 years, unwittingly touched a chord.
As I mentioned, the crying was instant. As well as surprising. Just an idle day, performing an idle task and suddenly I was mourning not just my father, but how the entire event has effected my mother.
I’d pondered the notion before several times. But in all the times I’ve discussed my father’s passing with her, I think I subconsciously avoided it. In fact, I recall one night, just days after he passed, I was in the basement and just my mother and I were in the house and I suddenly burst into tears.
I heard some rummaging around up in the kitchen. I knew then that my mother had heard me crying and was about to come downstairs to console me. She came down the stairs quickly and nestled beside me, burying her entire body quite submissively into mine.
