running the gamut

My emotions are scattered right now. Maybe not scattered, but not clear and distinct, and there’s definitely a lot of pulp. I’m in a constant state of irritability, the kind I feel when I’m trying to sleep and all I can do is toss and turn. It’s unpleasant to say the least.

Much of what I feel is anger. I’m angry that he is gone, and that now my mother must refer to us as three rather than four musketeers. I’m angry that these fools on Jerry Springer gripe and bitch about their lives while the beautiful, dignified gentleman that was my father never voiced a complaint. I’m angry that the aftermath has been nothing but forms and calls to newspapers and digging through files when all I want to do is curl up in a ball and try to remember as much of him as I can. I’m angry that his retirement was only six years long, and that for much of it he was hooked up to machines. That he never got back to Italy. That he had to drink his liquids through a goddamn straw and spend his last few days on this earth in bed. Much of it is selfish. I’m angry that my father will never see the joy of me falling in love again and the someday of me having a wedding. I’m angry that his presence at events will be replaced by discussions of fond memories and his favorite song. And I’m angry about the damn Super Bowl. That both of my father’s favored teams will be playing one another and he won’t be able to watch the splendor on the big screen television he only had for three weeks. I’m angry that I’m 34 years old and that my father is dead. And I’m furious that a life so consequential could be reduced to a legacy of left behind items in an instant.

I ache. I ache that the odd calm I see in my mother could only bless her after my father’s death, the only time in years when she hasn’t been worried about his oxygen being taped to his face during sleep and whether or not she should wake him from a nap to give him his nighttime meds. I ache that he spent the last years of his life sicker than anyone should be, and that he never griped about his situation, when I’m sure there were days he wanted to rage against us and the universe. I ache that he lies alone someplace in Virginia and won’t be cremated for several more days. And that I’m going on with life as best I can, finding laughter in half-hour shows and joy in exquisite flowers sent to the house. And I ache that I don’t feel him here, and that it makes me feel like a failure. People keep telling me that he’ll always be with me, but it doesn’t even remotely feel that way. It feels like he’s gone and that there’s a hole in our family. There is a sense of permanence to this that I didn’t think I’d feel. I don’t hear his voice, I can’t find his smell. I don’t see him unless I close my eyes, don’t sense him when reading his handwriting or cuddling under the quilt I last saw covering him. I don’t feel him here anymore. I wish so much that I could.