A few days ago our house was filled with food. Food food and more food. People are still bringing us food, Michelle made an amazing dinner for us tonight and one of my mom's friends just brought over a breakfast casserole for tomorrow. But over the last couple days we managed to clean out the rest of the homemade meals between family and friends eating. So now our house is overflowing with flowers. I'd say about $1000 worth of flowers if not more. Even one of my design professors sent flowers when she heard the news, which is super sweet of her. Half my friends gave me flowers before dinner on Tuesday. We have all the flowers from the memorial/funeral services at our house now and I think we even got a basket arrangement via fedex this evening. Our living room smells like a garden but the flowers don't make me happy because I'm reminded why they're there. But then I remind myself they're also there because the people who sent them loved my dad and my family, so it's a mixed kind of feeling.
I don't like crying. People say it's supposed to make you feel better and its important to recovery, but I don't think so, I feel better if I can avoid it. Crying doesn't fix what's wrong and distracts from being happy aaand it makes my head hurt and my eyes puffy and it's just no good. Dustin told me yesterday that I'm very strong, but I don't think that's true. I just don't want to feel like I'm drawing attention to this situation to garner sympathy for myself. I'd rather deal with it on my own...what would anyone else do for me anyway? The thing I appreciate most is people not talking about it with me because I don't know what to say. I appreciate someone making me laugh. I love my family because we laugh a lot even if it's about stupid things. And sometimes I guess its a nervous reaction of mine to laugh in bad situations. This morning before following the casket down the aisle in the church i started crying and i didnt have a tissue so i got a new pack from my mom's purse and couldn't open it, so my grandmother took it from me to show me how to do it and she couldn't do it either and was being rather vocal about it which made me laugh, probably an inappropriate time but I don't think my dad would've minded. I've been thinking stuff like that a lot "If my dad saw this he'd say '___'". Like during the memorial they were playing the cheese-balliest music and I bet he'd have preferred a soundtrack of his favorite songs playing. Also my dad wasn't a very religious man and the priest's homily for his funeral was all about how my dad lived his life in Christ and was a good catholic man ect. but the priest didn't know my dad, it was probably a cookie cutter kind of sermon.
Being at church and also this whole thing has made think a lot about our, and my own beliefs about the after life. I believed in reincarnation and fate. Basically I believed that each soul had a pre-determined purpose and every action you take influences your life and those around you in a pre-determined way that all fits together for a greater purpose. And, if your fate takes more than one life to fulfill you'd be reincarnated to get closer to achieving your goal, and you'd go through the motions as many times as you were needed and then you could have eternal life in whatever awaits for us after that (a whole philosophy is a hard thing to flesh out). But after someone dies in our culture we like to think that they're watching over us from their place up in heaven with the Lord we believed in and stuff. And it's comforting that way, if they're watching us we don't have to give them up completely. They can still help guide us and be proud of us. It's certainly more comforting than their soul being whisked into another newborn baby, or simply vanishing into non-consciousness and non-existence, which is even more unsettling. (side note: I find the watching thing kind of creepy and unsettling unless they can only see what's happening when it's good like a wedding or whatnot, there certainly many things I do I wouldn't want my dad watching in on) So now I think I need to revise my little after death philosophy. I'm not claiming it's true or I'm right but religious and philosophical beliefs in the after life feel like they're purely for the comfort of the living, and my dad not being able to see me on my wedding, or see his grandchildren is not comforting. So maybe your soul gets a little breather before its reincarnated. Besides, I never considered the notion of soul mates before. If my mom and dad are soul mates and my dad's reborn right now but my mom lives on for 40 more years, then there would be a pretty big age gap eh? So maybe they wait around to be reincarnated at the same time if needed. haha, I'm so not a good philosopher, but I like that idea best.
So anyway, back to the crying thing. I hate it. I've been on the verge of crying many times and I have to stop and think about something else. So I don't think it's that I'm a strong person or whatever for not being an emotional wreck, I've just gotten very good at distracting myself. When I get that tingling feeling under me eyes and in my nose I just feel like I'm about to break, like glass falling to the ground and I have to catch myself. And during the memorial and funeral I tried to stop myself as soon as I could and I did all right except when I hugged my mom after the two. See, when I start crying it's like passing a point of no return and I'll be a mess for at least an hour.
Also on a note I thought of earlier, I hate hate hate the question "How're you doing" during times like these. I know people don't know what else to say but really what do you expect to respond with? If I told you I was a blubbering mess 23 hours out of the day what would anyone be able to say to make it better? And saying I'm all right or fine makes me feel like an emotionless rock. So I've been answering "well you know" which is still a bad answer because how do you respond to that either? People just nod or say yeah and I guess I prefer that anyway.
Jesus Christ this is a long post. I think I'll end it here and tell you about family shenanigans and family and friend drama in another post. It might be a good transition into everyday life again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The way I see it, trying to distract yourself from being emotional only lasts so long. I'd take time alone to get it out so that it creeps up less often when you don't want it to.
And I do think you are a strong person... it doesn't have anything to do with whether you get emotional or not. It is your ability to laugh and find positive things even in this somber occasion that make you so strong. It's obvious there was a lot of love between you and your dad, and you know that he'd want you to continue finding joy in your life. I know it's easier said than done, but don't feel like you're begging for attention. I mean, if you pull that card to keep from paying for pizza or something, then we'll talk. :p Sometimes it helps to simply talk for an hour or two in detail to get everything out, but there's nothing selfish about that- just find someone you know will listen.
I know ultimately there's nothing I can do, but if you decide you do ever need to get out and do something to distract your mind, just let me know. :)
Post a Comment