I don’t spend much time on the down side of life. I am and have most always been a glass half full person. Often even being a glass overflowing personality. I like being upbeat, smiling, giving, expressing joy and positivity.
Once in a while I am on the downside. I guess it’s part of the cycle of life. I don’t often share that I’m down because I don’t believe in wallowing in it. I decided to write it down here so I can look at it, feel it, examine it and move beyond it.
Yes my father died. Part of life is that we will loose our parents. The 1980s conditioned me for death. I survived many a friend, acquaintance and sexual partner in that era of AIDS. I remember my mother talking with me about how I was too young for this to be happening. She hadn’t lost so many friends as I had. She said that loosing that many wasn’t supposed to happen until one was in their 70s or even beyond.
The 1980s passed into my history. I haven’t lost a friend to AIDS or any other cause in years. I worked in healthcare for years and saw many a death of people that I didn’t really know, but yet cared for. I left healthcare in 2004. So while I am a person who has probably experienced more death than the average, I am out of practice.
Then there’s the difference, the void left by someone who was always there as long as I can remember. I look a little bit like him. I have some of his mannerisms. I say things he used to say. I try my best to rein in that temper that I inherited from him.
I feel like I’ve written and written about his death on this blog thingy to the point that my dear readers are like “Oh shit, not another my dad died post”. I hope it’s not one of ‘those’ post but actually a healing post, for me as well as maybe one of you.
It’s a dark cloudy day here, one where the gray envelopes you like a steamy sticky comforter on too warm of a night. The weather makes it even easier too feel like my emotions are a cramped shell closing in on my ears. That blinders are limiting the field of vision around my eyes. The world seems small.
At 4:26 am I was jolted awake. My father’s voice called me. It wasn’t a stern nor angry voice and not a joyful, cheerful one either. It was just a normal voice as if he stood over me and said my name just to waken me from my deep slumber. The room was dark as the glowing green numerals from the clock stared me in the face and the little dogs slept alongside of me like warm baked potatos scattered at my sides. After a brief thought of I might as well get up now, I peacefully drifted back out into a sea of sleep lulled by the soft breeze from the ceiling fan above.
The voice I heard is haunting me today. That voice was vividly accurate in tone and intonation. I don’t remember any dream attached to it at all. It left me feeling a void this morning. A void that I should feel. Voids are not necessarily bad. It’s just a space, a space I can fill with good. With time and smart choices, I will find the good to fill the void.
Fearsome Beard 