Runaway train

So there are times when one really misses another person, in a way that cannot be put down in words. It is just a sense that you intensely wish somebody was there but you know that they are not going to be there -ever.

I am not sure what one can do about it - ride the storms? Batten down the hatches and hold on tight? I guess one just has to live through the process in order to allow healing and progress.

Today I was walking to Sainsbury's to buy food for lunch and I thought - "I miss my Dad!". It just hit me that I was never going to see him again - in away that I had not appreciated before. In some respects I have  been functioning as though he is "just away" and will return at a later unspecified date. I am not sure why I have been thinking like this. Maybe it is self-protective - because when I have flashes of the truth - it is so painful it takes my breathe away. Sometimes in quiet, unsuspecting moments I am taken back to that sunnny Friday morning in the chapel. I can see the coffin to the right of me but I just cannot believe that is is true. Sometimes I the music that we played at the Chapel will float through my head and cause my throat to tighen up and my breathe to shorten. The only saving grace is the feeling, the certainty that he is now at peace. When the coffin was lowered into the ground - I felt certain that my father was somewhere at total peace. I felt relieved that the suffering was over and that he now has eternity to rest and watch over us - until we see him again. 

I am going to have to get used the feeling of missing my Dad. I guess partly it has something to do with returning to the everyday but knowing that I am never going to see him face to face to tell him about the little details of my life. Yesterday I spent over seven hours in his 'office' sorting out papers and it felt as though he was there with me. With me, in the sense that I was forever reading letters and reports that he had written, I was looking through pages and pages of his familiar handwriting. It just felt like he was there. It somehow made a difficult job much bearable.

So I shall soldier on. It's strange - I am used to dealing with physical and mental disabilities impairing quality of life. However, I have to constantly remind myself that I am not sick, I am not ill and my body is working just fine. I guess this is part of the bereavement process. Having read so many books on other topics - one would have thought that I would have read at least one book on bereavement and now have all the answers. I have actually read two - I cannot remember much about what I read. Perhaps the most important things were to give myself time, in all things and to understand that people greave in different ways.

Let's pray for a brighter tomorrow.