Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Miss

Soon it will be two months since you died.

Even on the day you died, I could say it with a straight face, and felt like I could accept it. I don't know why it was so easy so soon for me. I guess I had to take care of dad that day, and the days that followed. He was no longer able to take care of me. I haven't done as good a job at that lately, and the tension between us is pretty much back to where it used to be. Though it's probably just me thinking there's tension - he wants us to have a good relationship, but it's so easy to be irritated at him.

The day before yesterday I cut my thumb while cleaning a knife I used to cut up some onions. Not a bad cut, just...you know, enough to bleed a little. Dad got some anti-biotic stuff and a bandaid, and fumbled through the wrapping and eventually tore the bandaid. Even little things like that make me think of you, and how you could get the damn thing open with one hand pretty much, and be squeezing out some ointment with the other. It was like you were a walking medical station. Now I can't even get a damned bandaid on without messing things up.

It's getting so much harder to think about you. Every day I have to fight off wave after wave of emotion. Sometimes I feel OK, and I know I have to move on. Other times I don't want to get out of bed, just waiting and hoping that I'll hear you downstairs frying bacon and calling me down for breakfast. You haven't yet.

I can barely see as I'm typing this, but I just have to do something...say something or else I'm going to scream and pull out my hair. This probably isn't going to help anything, but I can't bottle up my feelings anymore. It's become too toxic.

I miss you so much. Dad isn't himself, even though he's doing the same old routine we were used to. He's gone overboard with the Easter decorations, and I'm terrified to think what he'll have prepared for Easter Day. He's trying to keep the house cheerful and lively, but it doesn't do much good when 4.5 days of the week there's only one of us here.

I was going to Bennettsville tomorrow to put out the flowers, but the landscapers are coming back to finish what they didn't get done today. I'll get the flowers out there, though, I promise. The graves will look as pretty as ever.

I've got to go. Sorry