It’s been 57 days since my father died.

Typing that number, it almost seems impossible.

I know it happened though, because every time I close my eyes I hear my mother screaming and him lying cold and lifeless in his bed. I try to block it out but my mind just won’t allow it. I think the horror is still too fresh, too strong. It’s like one of those movie scenes where you think “Oh that poor woman”, and then  you realize that “that poor woman” is you.

And what I am going through is nothing compared to what my mother has to deal with. She still sleeps in the same room, in the same house where so many of her memories were made and where they eventually ended in the death of her husband of 43 years. I avoid my parent’s house like it has a quarantine sign on it now. To walk in and see my dad’s empty chair, not hear him yell hello, and to inevitably catch a glimpse into their bedroom is just way too much for me to take. And as life often does, along with the avoidance comes a huge helping of guilt that I’m not spending enough time with my mother. She says it’s ok, but even though she might be ok with it, I’m not. We both lost husband’s , and I lost a father. The hole in my life is huge and festering.

I think the primary feeling I have is anger. I’m not mad at my father for dying, he had cancer, was suffering, and went out like he wanted, at home and in his sleep. I’m not mad at Gregory for dying either, it was an accident that may or may not have turned out differently if his body had not failed him. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

I’m angry at the overwhelmingness of it all. Is that even a word? It is here. I barely had 9 months to begin to put myself together again after G died and BAM – I get pushed off the wall again. It’s like one of those waves you see crashing over the levee that knocks everything down, and I can’t get out of it’s way. I’m also afraid I haven’t totally dealt with my father’s death just yet. I cried and had an epic meltdown the day he died, I made it through the funeral, the subsequent visits to the cemetery, the flow of relatives and friends coming to give condolences. Then I buried myself back in my house on the hill where I can be alone and only have to come out for the occasional day at work and to buy groceries. I have good days, of course. Days where I take myself to dinner, drinks with friends, or just the occasional jaunt out into normalcy. Then I have those days where I don’t get out of bed until 4 pm and find no real reason to get out even then.

I avoid looking at the pictures of my father I have up along the mantel next to the pictures of my husband. I give them a cursory glance as I go by, say “Hi Daddy” , then shift my mind to something else as quickly as I am able. Commercials on TV with little girls and their daddy’s find me punching buttons on the remote with the authority of someone given the nuclear launch go-ahead. Insomnia has welcomed itself back into my bed, and as I lay awake at 2, 3, 4 am the film of the morning my father left us plays on a loop in my mind. I try to “whiteboard” it out, and when that doesn’t work, I tell myself in a stern voice to “Stop it Kim!”, and try, mostly unsuccessfully, to go back to sleep.

A good psychologist will tell you that I am “dual grieving” , whatever that is supposed to mean. I see it as an image, like the old woman in China with the two baskets on a stick across her back . Which basket should she deal with first? What holds the most, what matters ? How does she get the baskets off and straighten fully again to meet the world that keeps coming at her ? And if she drops her baskets, then what ?

Then what ?