The Weight of Air

Weight. I've gained weight. I've lost weight. I've lifted weights. I've carried the weight of the world. Felt the weight of lies. I've pushed my weight around. But lifting weight is supposed to build you up. Strengthen you. Make you stronger. But the weight of air? The weight I'm carrying now? It's the heaviest thing I've ever felt. Air. Who would've thought air would be heavy. 

No one can see it. You can't touch it. You can't hold it. Sometimes I cannot breathe its so heavy. Oppressive. Choking. It makes me physically sick sometimes when I am are carrying it and a lot of times I don't even know I am because it has no image. It's just there. Bearing down me. All I can feel is its presence. And how heavy it is. 

I'm not the same person I was before my father died. I will never be the same person again. I've done and gone through most of my life alone. Silently. Like a lost ship out to sea. Hoping I would see a lighthouse somewhere to guide me. Sometimes that light came in the form of family. Or friends. Or a career. Somehow I always found my way. I steered a lot of wrong directions. I followed a lot of paths that weren't really lighthouses at all, but a mirage. A mirage of something that I thought could save me but it was just a figment of my imagination. 

Everyone goes through grief differently. I don't expect anyone to understand mine. I know you can't see the air I am carrying but you can tell I'm different. You can tell something has changed. You can tell I am not the person I used to be. But physically. On the outside. I am the same. That's the trouble with air and the weight of it. No one knows your weight because as humans we cannot fathom something until we can see it. I'm scared of what you would see if you could see it. It would probably scare you. 

Often times I've felt alone in rooms full of people. Often times I've felt alone in my choice of lifestyle. Often times I've felt alone in my feelings. I've never, in 41 years, feel as alone as I do right now. 

There are nights I cry myself to sleep. Praying when I open my eyes that someone, anyone, is there and just holds me. But I open my eyes and every single time I am still alone. 

This isn't just about my fathers passing. It's about all the things I never had while he was alive. A wedding. A child. My own home. It's about so many things. And it's heavy. This air is stifling. 

This is my therapy. It's what I do and how I can express myself. I have no other outlet. I'm sorry that my sadness seeps over into here and other public social areas, but it's where I am at right now. And I'm not sorry about how I feel. It's just reality. I'm not good at pretending. So I don't. You don't have to read my blog or follow me on Facebook. You don't even have to care. I'm simply here to tell you that the weight of air feels like hell. 

I never knew emptiness could weigh so much. When something is empty it's supposed to be lighter. Easier to carry. This is not. I'm barely holding on to it. I'm blessed I can go to work for a few hours a day and set it down because it's truly the only place I can. 

I drove to Sisters today to go have lunch at our uncles. It physically hurt my heart to see "the compound."  There was a time when I would look at my old backyard and think God this place is beautiful. Serene. Calm. Now I see emptiness. A torn up canvas. Tattered and ragged. It hurts on levels I didn't know you could hurt. It's even worse going into the house. And perhaps I am the only one who sees it that way. I can't change what I see. 

I know somewhere, deep down inside an incredibly broken heart that there will days this weight isn't so bad. I don't know when. Or how. I'm not the only one who's lost a loved one. People survive. Life goes on. I just know that right now, at this moment, this is a heavy weight. The heaviest of all. 

The weight of air. 

Stranger in my own home...

When?  When did I become a stranger in my own home? The very home I grew up in? 

The day you died Dad. The minute I saw you and held your cold and lifeless hand. I felt like an intruder. Like I had access to a place I should not have been allowed. And the further we get along with moving your stuff out and preparing for the sale, the worse it gets. 

I have so many memories of the place when it was just that. My home. Not of the place it has recently become. I feel like I'm in a foreign land when I enter it. I feel guilty for taking your things. Or packing them. Or for throwing away your old snowmobile suit. Which lets be honest, you should've done years ago. I feel like I'm mistreating you by doing these things. And yet they have to be done. I get physically sick going in there. I don't feel closer to you by being there. I feel like we are mistreating your memory. 

Brother says you've been to his man cave and left little momentos. It's kind of freaking him out. I'm jealous and he's scared lol! You always did love it there. 

Bella says you woke her from a dead sleep the other night and said hi B Ree with a big smile on your face and disappeared. It made her feel so good and so sad at the same time. 

None of us are the same. Your children I mean. We walk around like we are ghosts ourselves. Shells of people. The insides caving in, the parts people can't see. I run into people. Almost daily. Who say I am sorry to hear about your Dad. And I know they are, but I am just as sorry that they have to say that to me. 

When are you going to come see Brodie and I? Will you ever? 

Do you remember when we were in the kitty cat snowmobile racing circuit? And the day I won? You told me just to put the pedal to the metal and go bare fast. You said I used to tell you to go bare fast when I was little. Do you remember the year of the blizzard and you plowed a racetrack for our baby snowmobiles? Or do you not have those memories now? 

I do. And when I go to the house I try to remember them. Because it's all I have left. And it's all that keeps me from throwing up when I'm there. Because otherwise, I just end up feeling like a stranger in my own home. 

Are you there yet?...

Hi Dad. 

Are you there yet?

Probably seems like a funny question and Sister said she hoped to shout, it had been 21 days. It's been 28 now. 

I suppose we all have different versions of Heaven and when we arrive. And the stops we may make a long the way. I'm just glad that you had been going back to Church. That you felt comforted by that. I will find my way back someday maybe. I've always found God in the places no one thinks to look for him. 

We, I shouldn't say we, several people, I was not one, you know I don't even know how to turn a tractor on, were able to get some of your crops out. It was a beautiful display of how a farming community comes together. Sister, Brother and I can never repay those that helped that day. Or ever explain to someone how much it meant to us. 

You would be so proud of Sister. Although she is grateful you didn't "collect" anything other than hats, she really wishes you would've thrown away the mounds of papers you collected. I imagine there will be several days sorting through those this winter. 

Brother and Donnie are contemplating farming. God Bless them for wanting to. I think they are nuts but if you and Grandpa left anything you left an awful lot of pride to deal with. 

Gram is doing okay. She's had so much loss in her life. Doesn't seem fair. I need to get down and see her. 

I'm fine. I'm still not the Vice President of Blick Art Materials, not even close, but without my job I feel as if I would've never got out of bed for days. It keeps me busy and my mind off of the reality of the situation. The reality that you are gone. Just like that. A breath away. In the moments when I am not at work and I have time to think, I'm angry and I cry a lot. So I thank God every single day for my job. 

Brodie says hi Poppa. If you show up some night to visit us can you make sure he doesn't bark his head off at you? It scares me when he barks at the air. 

Sister and Brother have had dreams about you. I kinda knew you would visit them first. I'm sure you know how hard they are taking this. And I'm sure you knew I would be fine waiting. 

Luckily grief is like the tide. It ebbs and flows. I'm not looking forward to the holidays. One day at a time right now. 

I just wanted to tell you that I love you and hope you are at peace. 

But mostly I just wanted to know...

Are you there yet?