“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something” Plato
Am I a wise man, a fool, or a nice mix of both? I started this blog in some part because I was grieving the loss of my Father, I thought it would help me to deal with the feelings and emotions that were already out of control as well as the grief. My Father passed away on January 25, 2014; and I started the blog that February. Over the years I have posted sporadically, never really finding my groove, just going along with the flow as best I could.
There is still so much pain I have kept bottled up, watching my father painfully transition across 6 months. The first 3 went by without any diagnosis, the last 3 were a living hell as my Father did not understand through the opioid/narcotic haze that his was a terminal diagnosis, the doctor let him fight as long as he could but eventually he insisted on sending him to hospice. I still have a lot of pent up anger for the oncologist for visiting the hospital at 5AM and not having enough common sense to know when his patient was not cognizant enough to understand what the doctor was telling him. My father was tough though, having the bottom vertebrae disintegrate did not stop him from fighting and trying to win a futile war. The pain he endured through the transportation and the moves on and off gurneys, beds, and radiation tables; even in dying Rangers lead the way and he exemplified that motto.
Unfortunately he was only in hospice care for 3 days before he passed away. Of all the calls I had to make during those 3 months keeping my brother James and other relatives updated, the hardest thing I have ever had to do was call James on his birthday and let him know that our father had passed away. Being a caregiver during those three months was difficult, watching the progression of his cancer was horrific, calling relatives to let them know his diagnosis and giving them updates was hard; but to this day I still occasionally wake up in a cold sweat thinking about that one phone call.
Leap forward to 2019 and this time my Mother got sick, specialist after specialist with no diagnosis for months, having to have fluid drained off her belly every couple of days. Watching her deteriorate over months as I cared for her was like a flashback to my Father’s passing. When she was finally given a diagnosis of cancer the doctor gave her a few days, a week at most. Once again I had to make phone calls the hardest being the first to call James and let him know. James and his family were able to come out and spend her last days with us at Columbus Hospice in the same room my Father had been in. Her passing was in many ways so different, she accepted it happily, she had grown tired of being with out her love and soul mate and on Sept 28, 2019 she passed away.
To this day I still keep all of this pain and heartache buried deep within, afraid to just let go and grieve. I can write about it, it is almost more clinical and sterile but, I have not talked about it because part of me fears that if I open those flood gates I wont be able to stop. I keep telling myself that I am going to get grief counseling but I keep kicking the can down the road. I know that the current path I am on is unstable.