On Pause
"Adam's father, Wayne, was found dead in his apartment on Friday."
I keep repeating the phrase, for one reason, or another, all day long. Sometimes it is said out loud, but mostly it is on a loop, echoing forever and constant in my head. The motivation behind the repetition is still a mystery to me, but I let it happen. Perhaps I am trying to come to terms with the reality of such a thing. Wayne is dead.
My relationship with my father-in-law was, at best, complicated, and over the years I have lost respect for him, my husband, and myself because of his actions, and our reactions to them. At his passing I am very clearly relieved and tentatively hopeful that once this grief has cut through our family we will be able to heal, scarring over previously infected emotional tissue, becoming stronger versions of ourselves.
My role, since marrying in to this madness, has always been to make things run smoothly, and arranging for Wayne’s cremation and the future memorial is no exception. It is strangely balanced for me to be cleaning up after Wayne’s death, sort of sweeping his life in to a neat pile and disposing of it the most humane way I am able.
Do you really ever dispose of a life? Is that even possible?
Wayne had four children, each one wearing different battle scars from their relationship with their father. None of the four children are particularly close, all of them strangely held apart from their siblings, harboring their own impressions of family ties that are oddly similar, but the kids would never know that. They don’t talk. Most of them don’t talk about emotional issues and none of them really talk about their father. It is as if there is a black space there where Father would be. They don’t turn to each other, but they have each turned to me to express their grief and guilt, their shame and their anger. The sister has flashes of pleasant memories and respect for this actions that she is able to hold on to. It is strange how she is the only one that really needs that to move on.
I am tired. I have been bouncing from one family member to another, easing their grief for a man that I couldn’t stand. It is strange. Ironic? Absurd? Maybe. Karma, most likely. I have come to peace with the fact that there is little in life that is fair. There are just things that have to be done and people capable of seeing them completed.
I think about that ridiculous show on TNT, “The Closer” and I compare the concept to my role in this life. It is like I am a closer for family drama. I get things done. I flush out the secrets and the pain, forcing people to deal with them, so they can move on.
Last month we took on the in-laws and I thought that I would fail. I have yet to fail. I am relieved; actually, that they were here and that Stefanie is clean because I don’t know how I could have balanced the addiction and Wayne’s death and the soon-to-be known marriage of the youngest family member to a man that we all feel is wrong for her. I will deal with that disaster once that information becomes common knowledge.
I would like to add, here, some pithy or profound statement about the state of affairs in my life, but I am unable to access that. I just keep moving forward, trying to be as sensitive as possible to everyone else’s emotions at this point. I stayed up after Adam went to bed last night to read in the near dark. I needed to be alone. I am never really alone anymore and with all of the people clinging and grasping and vomiting their emotions on me, I am heavy with Presence, if such a thing is conceivable.
If gas was cheaper, or we weren’t so broke, or I wasn’t needed, I would be invisible. I would be on the wind. I would be, well, not me. I am feeling so very solid right now, so weighted by the world. It is a difficult feeling when I can remember being light and free. It was a million years ago and I don’t know why I don’t just let that part of me go. It is sad that I am the thing holding down the memory of my own freedom. Have I become my own chain?
These are deceptively reasonable thoughts. I need to stop this train of thought before I am derailed. There is no time to be crazy or needy right now.
I keep repeating the phrase, for one reason, or another, all day long. Sometimes it is said out loud, but mostly it is on a loop, echoing forever and constant in my head. The motivation behind the repetition is still a mystery to me, but I let it happen. Perhaps I am trying to come to terms with the reality of such a thing. Wayne is dead.
My relationship with my father-in-law was, at best, complicated, and over the years I have lost respect for him, my husband, and myself because of his actions, and our reactions to them. At his passing I am very clearly relieved and tentatively hopeful that once this grief has cut through our family we will be able to heal, scarring over previously infected emotional tissue, becoming stronger versions of ourselves.
My role, since marrying in to this madness, has always been to make things run smoothly, and arranging for Wayne’s cremation and the future memorial is no exception. It is strangely balanced for me to be cleaning up after Wayne’s death, sort of sweeping his life in to a neat pile and disposing of it the most humane way I am able.
Do you really ever dispose of a life? Is that even possible?
Wayne had four children, each one wearing different battle scars from their relationship with their father. None of the four children are particularly close, all of them strangely held apart from their siblings, harboring their own impressions of family ties that are oddly similar, but the kids would never know that. They don’t talk. Most of them don’t talk about emotional issues and none of them really talk about their father. It is as if there is a black space there where Father would be. They don’t turn to each other, but they have each turned to me to express their grief and guilt, their shame and their anger. The sister has flashes of pleasant memories and respect for this actions that she is able to hold on to. It is strange how she is the only one that really needs that to move on.
I am tired. I have been bouncing from one family member to another, easing their grief for a man that I couldn’t stand. It is strange. Ironic? Absurd? Maybe. Karma, most likely. I have come to peace with the fact that there is little in life that is fair. There are just things that have to be done and people capable of seeing them completed.
I think about that ridiculous show on TNT, “The Closer” and I compare the concept to my role in this life. It is like I am a closer for family drama. I get things done. I flush out the secrets and the pain, forcing people to deal with them, so they can move on.
Last month we took on the in-laws and I thought that I would fail. I have yet to fail. I am relieved; actually, that they were here and that Stefanie is clean because I don’t know how I could have balanced the addiction and Wayne’s death and the soon-to-be known marriage of the youngest family member to a man that we all feel is wrong for her. I will deal with that disaster once that information becomes common knowledge.
I would like to add, here, some pithy or profound statement about the state of affairs in my life, but I am unable to access that. I just keep moving forward, trying to be as sensitive as possible to everyone else’s emotions at this point. I stayed up after Adam went to bed last night to read in the near dark. I needed to be alone. I am never really alone anymore and with all of the people clinging and grasping and vomiting their emotions on me, I am heavy with Presence, if such a thing is conceivable.
If gas was cheaper, or we weren’t so broke, or I wasn’t needed, I would be invisible. I would be on the wind. I would be, well, not me. I am feeling so very solid right now, so weighted by the world. It is a difficult feeling when I can remember being light and free. It was a million years ago and I don’t know why I don’t just let that part of me go. It is sad that I am the thing holding down the memory of my own freedom. Have I become my own chain?
These are deceptively reasonable thoughts. I need to stop this train of thought before I am derailed. There is no time to be crazy or needy right now.
Comments
Will be thinking about you.