A Death at the Doorstep

 

It's not a title that screams optimism.

The past two weeks of my life have had a grey cloud lingering around them.

Last week during my out of town work I got a call that my sister in law lost her father. It was hard having to tell my brother that I was too far away to be there. Normally I would step up, call into work that I needed emergency time off and take on any task they needed me to take. My flight schedule and the distance between us couldn't allow me to do that.

My mother made the drive and got their dogs while I sat feeling useless in another city. A one hour and forty minute flight away, a flight that wouldn't leave for another three days. 

I cried that night because I wouldn't allow myself to cry in a room of forty coworkers learning the new system at work. I made it through the day pushing my emotions to the side, I made it to my hotel and I cried. 

I missed my dad that day, loudly. I miss him every day, but that day it was loud. I knew my brother was probably reliving the loss we just experienced a couple years ago. I couldn't not be there to share that load. 

Yesterday and today again I miss my dad loudly. 

As I was in my home office space yesterday I heard something that made my heart sink. It sounded like a bomb or the side of a mountain dropping and crashing to the ground. It made me stop and step outside my house. I stood on the deck unsure looking towards my mothers house making sure that it was normal.

It was normal, however she too stepped out and was looking towards me wondering what we had both heard. I pointed to the highway outside our property. It was that way I was pretty sure.

Just off near the end of our driveway was a catastrophic collision between two pickup trucks. Two young men lost their lives yesterday. Men who I did not know personally but were weaved into my life through those that I love. At my doorstep was more loss more pain for those that I care about. 

Death dancing in our lives. I know it won't leave, it is here to stay. It will get less loud eventually but there will be moments where the loudness returns. We have not experienced exactly the same scenario in our loss, but we have experienced loss. If these moments make me miss my dad loudly it's because they share something with me. 

Writing this, I can feel it hitting the same nerve as all the others. The place that grief touches isn't smooth anymore. It's sharp now. Jagged edged. Though if I am honest, I am not sure I remember when it was ever smooth.

I recently posted a prose piece called Nevermore. I know I have a knack for finding the exact spot where it hurts the most and pressing on it. 

The loss of my father changed me in ways I didn't deserve. I already struggled with my self worth and the idea that I may never be good enough for someone to want to marry some day.  Add to that the aisle is a long walk for a girl with no father. That line is brutal, I know, but it is now my reality. Another piece that part of me weighs my worth on. 

Another reason part of me finds that I will never be good enough.  

Here's the thing though. I write like the ghost is already haunting the aisle, but I am still here. Not there. I'm still breathing through it , even if it feels like drowning.

My mother and I as different as we are share a need to just do something in the harder times. We knew early on who had passed away just outside our property. We may have even known before our friends and family found out that they lost a loved one. 

Traffic was already stretching in both directions, and we knew those people were going to be waiting for a long time. We were only on one side so we just did what we could.

Water and coffee put out at the end of our driveway for those that needed it. 

A place to safely leave a vehicle for those that could walk to the other side and get picked up. 

Freshly made raisin cookies that we carried down the line of waiting vehicles.

It wasn't much.

It was something.

A small act of kindness, a quiet thank you for waiting. Two young men in our community have been lost too soon and people we love are hurting. 

I miss my dad so loudly right now. 

I am standing in the middle of the wreckage of a timeline I didn't get to choose, trying to build a bridge out of whatever scraps it left me.

This one is heavy.

But it is honest.

So I will keep bleeding onto the page if putting it here keeps me from bleeding out everywhere else.