Inconceivable

It is inconceivable to me that you are gone.
It is inconceivable to me that you have been gone a year.
It is inconceivable to me that I cannot see you.
It is inconceivable to me that your light no longer shines.
I have spent an entire year trying to figure out how to reach you…touch you…hear you.
I have spent an entire year trying to find the little girl who got lost, I mean really lost, without you.
I have spent an entire year convincing my grown ass self to tell that little girl that is was OK to be lost.
I have spent an entire year justifying why this felt different than losing Dad. It just does. It just did.
I have spent an entire year trying to comprehend the word orphan or how or why I became one.

My therapist said something to me today that I will carry with me for awhile. First she asked what I thought of how far I have come this past year. I responded with, oh you know, I feel pretty good I guess…feel like I am on the right path…feel like I am going in the right direction blah blah blah. She said, “well I feel like you have crossed thousands of miles. Thousands of miles from where we started, from where you started. You are not the person you were when you came here that first day.”

I knew that, I mean I felt it. But the transition happened so quietly, subtly, almost incognito. Stealth like. It was very gradual. It was very slow, it was very painful. I learned very early on to embrace that pace and feeling. Otherwise I doubt miles would have been crossed. Inches maybe, but not miles. It reminded me of my favorite excerpt from one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening-
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.“

Grief feels like that. That you have miles to go before you sleep. They have been really long, awful painful miles. But I had to cross every single one of them, or quite simply the “chapters after you” just could not exist. There will be many chapters, some of them easy, some of them hard, most all of them will have this lingering sense of absence as every single thing your kids or grandkids did was important to you so I know you would not want to miss a single thing. I promise you however, that you will be deeply missed.

Tomorrow it will be one year since you left this world. I pray that you are on the other side, YOU HAVE TO BE right? Just through a dimension I cannot see or feel, but right freaking there? You have to be…just right…freaking…there.
It is inconceivable to me that you would be any other place.

I have spent a lot of this past year beating myself up for not saving you. I made you promises that I did not fulfill. I know now it was not my job or responsibility to do so but I still carry a tremendous amount of guilt over not being able to accomplish that. I would have walked to Texas and back to make you well.

Since we did not yet get to have a service or celebration of life for you (I promise it is coming and I promise it will be as grand as we can muster) I will leave you with a song I know you would have loved at your service. It represents your Irish roots but also so very much of what Dee Dee Jarod and I feel…(and you can thank Dee Dee for it. She found this gem.)

You are so missed. You are so loved. Your absence has left a hole in my heart the same size as the 7th wonder I just visited. Its big, its vast, its scary and it doesn’t feel real.

Your absence is inconceivable to me.

Men of Erin-The Elders
Fare thee well me boy as you wonder this night
Be not feared in the darkness my heart is your light
As you go brave Men of Erin
Faith and love by your side
I will dream of your peace in the night

Please don’t cry my Mother as you sit by the hearth
I will dance your memories with joy in my heart
I will go now and pray as I travel this land
And live by the lessons you gave

Fare thee well my boy as you wonder this night
Be not feared in the darkness my heart is your light
As you go brave Men of Erin
Faith and love by your side
I will dream of your peace in the night

Please don’t cry my Father as you sit by the hearth
I will dance your memories with joy in my heart
I will go now and pray as I travel this land
And live by the lessons you gave

Fare thee well my boy as you wonder this night
Be not feared in the darkness my heart is your light
As you go brave Men of Erin
Faith and love by your side
I will dream of your peace in the night

Please don’t cry my Children
As you stand by my Grave
I have danced your memories all of my days
I will go now and pray as I travel this land
And live be the lessons you gave