It’s been three weeks since my dad passed. I think about him often; when I wake up and realize there’s no music playing in the living room, the minute moments of inactivity in afternoons, and those long sleepless nights.
The other night, I was revising the story I told friends and family who attended the wake, which contains the cause of my dad’s death, his declining health, his final years, the last time I saw him alive, and my final lengthy conversation with him.
In my head, I was reordering the sequence of events, choosing the right words, and debating if it was right to add bits of humor to the ‘script.’ For friends and family who met and knew him, I was refreshing their memory of my late father. For those who never met him, it was like telling the tale of the greatest man I’ve ever known.
It’s been tough seeing an empty seat in the living room. I feel like I’m enduring the first four stages of grieving (denial, anger, bargaining, depression) all at once. I’ve never experienced this kind of pain. Weekly and daily spooks such as opening my work e-mail, the countdown to big meetings, and night drives along dark and seedy streets have suddenly become trivial matters. I feel like nothing can ever hurt or scare me again.
Punch Time Clock 