Pressure

I cannot breathe.  I cannot get my breath.  I finally found the box of kleenex a few minutes ago to clean up my face, after hissing to myself “What sort of house of mourning are we running here without a single box of kleenex in sight?” last night as snot and tears ran all over my nightshirt.

The pressure in my chest is unbearable at times.  Night time it’s at it’s worst.  I feel like I want to explode with grief, scream the doors down, turn back the clock, spend more quality time, talk more, do all the things people should do but don’t.

I wrack the blow-up mattress with silent sobs and Rhys gently asks me if I’m crying about Grandpa.  I mutely nod and try to still the bed.  A few minutes later I notice Henry asleep, a lone tear has run down his face.  This breaks my heart even more.

This can’t be over – this can’t be it.  It seems like he should still be in the hospital getting better, we’re just hanging out, waiting for him to get out of ICU so we can take the kids to see him.  This cremation business is very difficult, it’s very difficult to get closure.  It’s a box, a tiny box.  It looks like a humidor, like we could be saying goodbye to a nice box of Cubans.  This is what he wanted and honestly, this is what I wanted too until my grandparents’ funerals, but then I changed my mind.  Maybe my kids won’t care.  I don’t know.  I guess I could leave them the option of either.  Knowing this country, there will be a law in place by then.  I will probably be relegated to become an environmentally sustainable tire or something.

I can’t breathe.  I keep gripping my my forehead with both hands, trying to squeeze the grief out.  Rhys saw a picture of my dad today and asked if it was taken in heaven.

But it is as it should be.  And I will get used to it.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. – Psalms 139:16