Recently and because of my father's declining health, I've had a few days where there were no words to express the sadness that I felt and I felt like the only option available to me was to cry. When I was younger I was generally a very happy person. There were seasons where the frustration of unresolved relationships and a subsequent dissatisfaction of my self put a weight on my soul that made being my normal jovial self a little more challenging. However, for the most part, "sad" is not a common way that I would describe myself.
This sadness, I am feeling, is steaming from the idea that my father's health is declining, that he is in pain that he is experiencing confusion and distress. I evaluated that feeling much further, only to discover that my sadness had very little to do with the state he is in physically. So many times over the course of the past 13 1/2 years I have known of his pain and his distress. This current near death experience is so very familiar, you see; he has been here before. That time he was curled up in a fetal position on the floor in the basement of our home in Southfield, shaking and crying out because he was in pain; the physical gesture of putting his hand on his lower abdomen, just a little to the left after he ate that my sister, Sara and I used to tease him about; the hair loss, the skin irritation, the enamel decay; the bleeding...oh my the bleeding; the amount of time he spent in the bathroom with uncontrollable bowl issues; the ulcers on parts of his body I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy; no, this pain became normal, these conditions are what we have come to expect.
What I am sad about is the idea of the connection between him and my mother being severed. What I find myself crying about is the fact that my mother will most likely loose her soul mate in the near future and she will, for the second time, have to bury a spouse. I am sad for her loss, for the pain that she has endured for the past 13 years, watching the man she loves be physically overcome by a incurable illness, having her life interfered with, holidays disrupted; trips to see her children postponed; commitments never to be made because she has bravely stood by her man. I am sad because she his biggest fan, his greatest source of encouragement; his faith carrier when he couldn't summon up the faith to keep fighting. I am sad because they had big dreams that they dreamed together, they had plans for their future and for the longest time they had hopeful expectations for that future...together. They had each other...since their early twenties, they have had each other. I am sad, because soon, she may not have him anymore and I cannot imagine loosing a spouse, having to watch a spouse pass on before you, the pain that is felt, the loneliness that ensues the part of you that dies right a long with them.
This past July 3, my sister Sara and I sat around the table and ate dinner with my parents. It was their 33rd wedding anniversary. I also realize that I am scared. Not of loosing my father - I am gratefully in a place of having been able to say everything I wanted to say to him, hear everything a daughter would want to hear from their father and am happy holding my most fondest memories of him tightly in my soul - I am afraid that I don't know who my mother is without him. Is it wrong to hope she will finally be able to travel without fear or restriction? Is it wrong to anticipate relief from waiting for this to all be over? Is it wrong to be happy that she may tackle that sewing or scapbooking that she has been talking about? I am afraid she might just shrivel up and that I might loose her. I suppose these fears and feelings are all normal, but they are causing me to feel sad, in an otherwise very happy soul.
