Ice Cream Interlude and Further Ruminations on Grief

Ok, so first of all, no, not all of these posts will be about my dead dad. This is just a special sort of weekend and it coincided with my idea to start blogging more, so here we are.

Second of all, yes, this is supposed to be about stuff I cooked and/or baked and I did NOT make ice cream, but hey, my blog my rules. See above for special weekend. This is also a sort of filler post until my next one, as the food I am making for that takes a while and won't be ready until tomorrow at earliest.


That out of the way....here is a picture of the completed cinnamon rolls from before that I didn't add to my last post because it ended kinda abruptly:

They were as ugly as sin...namon. See what I did there?

I will see myself out...

Grief is real weird, y'all. Also kinda dumb, if I am honest. Did I say that before? Don't know, and too lazy to re-read what I wrote. But really, it is dumb and weird. Earlier this week, while at work, I became overwhelmingly sad. For no particular reason. It was as if a wave of feeling just washed over me and dragged me down with the current. There were no thoughts or events that precipitated this. It just happened and I ended up having a crying fit in the so-called Wellness Room. Afterwards I was functionally inoperative for the rest of the day. That was partially because I was starting my period though, which always makes emotional times so much more delightful.

I have tried, so many times, to think of a metaphor or simile to describe grief. It is a wave; it is a gaping, bleeding wound; it is like there is a hole in the floor that you learn to step around until you forget and fall in. And while all of these are true, it really doesn't accurately describe what it feels like. I don't know if there really are words. Which, as an aspiring wordsmith, really bugs me.


In the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, Sayuri says that in a temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the wall. "It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read Loss, only feel it."

                                        

Source: imdb.com

You cannot know what grief is like until you experience it for yourself. I don't wish it on anyone, but it is inevitable that we will lose ones we love throughout our life. When it happens, and when it is someone who is incredibly important to us, it is such a profound and unique experience that is unlike anything you have ever felt before.

Sure, I have had friends who betrayed and abandoned me, and I have been in relationships that ended. I even lost my grandparents. But losing my dad when I was only 25....there is nothing else like it. I loved my grandparents. But, no offense, you kinda expect your grandparents to die. Plus, you are typically not as close to your grandparents as you are to your parents. My case is a little different since my mom's parents lived with us growing up, but still.  It isn't the same. I would even propose that it is different when you lose your parents when you are older. Not that there is a specific age you are going to be OK with losing your parent, but again, old people. At some point it isn't a surprise.

But when you are 25, single, carefree, and have your whole life ahead of you, losing a parent is the absolute last thing you expect. If you are from a lucky family like I was, your parents are supposed to be with you. Even if you are technically an adult in your 20s, your parents are supposed to still be there when you need them. They are supposed to be at your wedding, your kid's birth, Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthday parties. They are supposed to be there when you are freaking out about your life or need to know how to cook a turkey or change a tire. They aren't supposed to be dead.

In my previous post, I said that the main three stages of grief I feel these days are anger, depression, and acceptance. I think I was wrong. I have been examining my feelings the last few days and I am pretty sure denial and bargaining are still around and kicking in my subconscious.

I said ice cream, didn't I? I sort of went and bought a whole quart last night.

Don't judge me. The cookies are not mine though!

Bargaining is hard to notice, at least for me. I honestly thought I didn't experience that stage because I was never really like, saying that I would trade things for my dad to be alive or not sick. No actual, quantitative proposals. And yet, how often did I think of how I would give anything for one more hug, one more talk, one more smile? How badly I wanted to hear his voice again. What I would do if I could just wake up and have everything be right with the world. Just because I never actually asked God for this in "formal" prayer because I knew it was impossible and I can be stupidly practical at times, doesn't mean that I didn't still feel it. Bargaining, at least for me, may be my most unnoticed and under-realized stage, but it is still valid. And others may have different experiences with it as well.


Denial was another stage that was odd for me to realize. Obviously, there is the initial "No no no no no, this can't be happening" right at the beginning and then at the end when my dad decided to go into hospice. But now, three years later, I still experience denial, just not in the same way. For me, it is a sort of mental numbness.

When I think about what happened and the actual details and memory of it, or think about how my life is now, my brain will reel at the emotions and then go numb. I disassociate a little from the world. I am sure people may have seen my face, though I try to hide it. My eyes dull and my expression goes slack. Yes, that is a bit of my natural resting face, but really I am numb most of the time. It is denial hiding as acceptance. I completely space out for a bit, shake myself off, then return to normal. Or I force myself to be cheery as I try to beat that feeling back down. My brain is refusing to accept reality and process the magnitude of emotions that go with it. The worst is when it happens while I am driving. I will space out for a second and sort of operate on autopilot. There have been times when I couldn't pull myself back and I just started crying while driving. Blessedly, this only has happened when I am alone in the car and not putting others at risk. But it is a bit scary.

Thing is, it is just such a HARD thing to process. It is like trying to think of eternity.  You try to imagine infinity and existing forever, but it is impossible. Eventually your brain shies away from it and shuts that thought away. So I guess the gaping wound analogy might be the most accurate. You have a hole in your body and it is bleeding, but you are so used to it that you don't really notice how bad it is unless you actually focus on it. Then your brain freaks out and so you go back to ignoring it. You know it won't kill you, and you have done what you could to stop the bleeding, so it's fine. Go back to your life.

Man, that reminds me of another movie quote. It is about divorce, but it applies to losing a loved one as well, so I will modify it accordingly in [brackets]:

"Do you know the most surprising thing about [grief]? It doesn't actually kill you. Like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone [so incredibly important to you and whom you love dearly dies], it should kill you instantly. You shouldn't have to wake up day after day after that(...)"

And yet...somehow you do. You wake up every day. You get out of bed. You keep living. Somehow. Most days you honestly don't know how. But grief doesn't kill you. It doesn't go away either. Or make you stronger. It is just there, taking the place in your heart where someone else should be.

How I currently feel and want to be doing right now and forever