why i have not blogged recently and a hero's death

I was up until 2 last night crying. I haven't been eating well. haven't been sleeping. haven't really been writing in my journal. people tell you to call them if you need anything. they don't realize how difficult it can be to make that call.

But I managed to lift myself out of it enough to make some calls, to reach out to some people. I am trying to keep living; focusing on the baby steps. Someone told me "life is for the living". I am trying to function among the living. But i do not feel fully alive. a part of me died up there with him. He took part of me with him. When he died, my life as it was at that point died. And I was shoved suddenly into adulthood; numbly I stumble onward, trying to figure out this strange new life. I don't really know why I am in school right now. My brain is on vacation, and I keep trying to force it back to work. I guess I know education was important to my dad and my initial thought was "he would want me to continue living normally". I did not realize that living normally is impossible. I guess I feel pressure from society to dive back into life as it was. Sometimes distraction is nice, but sometimes it is impossible. And my memory is a blur; this whole part of my life is a blur as I am living it and already it blurs in memory. I am thinking I will take next semester off. I need time and space to digest all that has just happened to me. I have to learn how to live without my dad. and he's everywhere. All I have left are memories, and it's the memories that hurt so much.

I have found this blog to be somewhat therapeutic. I figured, instead of trying to fight against where my brain is going constantly, maybe I should just throw it all out there. I do not know if people read this, but there is something healing about getting my thoughts out into the ethers. I don't feel quite so alone with them, so haunted by them. Although I am still haunted, constantly, of grotesque images from my dad's death. I dream about it. I wake up crying. I re-live it over and over again, at varying levels of intensity.

And I miss him intensely. He was my best friend, my protector, my daddy. He fixed things when they broke. He told me how to fix things if he couldn't because he was too far away. He hugged me and kissed my bruises when I fell down. He picked up the pieces when I screwed up. And he always forgave me and continued loving me just as deeply. He always told me, "Natalie, you won't understand the love a parent has for a child until you have kids of your own." I know I am lucky to have had such an awesome dad. I can't imagine having a better relationship with him. How many people can say they have no regrets, no unfinished conflicts with the dead? I am lucky enough to feel overwhelmingly that way (of course there are always small things, but I love d my dad so).

I know this event, the event of my dad's death, is one of the primary shapers of my life. I will never "recover" from this people tell me. It will change, and the pain will shift, but it will not go away. I will never stop missing him.

Death is as natural as birth, and yet why do we shy so much from it? Our culture especially, is so afraid of sadness, grief any uncomfortable feelings. But I have found that avoiding the grief does not make it go away, and it does not make me feel any better. It simply changes form and manifests itself in a different way. I feel it in my body, especially if I have not acknowledged it recently. I feel heavy; like I am living in molasses. I am exhausted, yet sleep is illusive (as it always has been for me). I find my grief comes out as anger at small things. Perhaps this will teach me empathy for the actions of people--you never know what someone is going through. Why are we, as humans, so afraid of the pain of grief? I wonder if we are afraid that the pain will kill us. It certainly feels like too much sometimes. I feel like I am about to fall over some edge, and I am so afraid of falling. But, I think, the only way to move through this and find myself again is by falling, again and again. Each time I start to slip, I fall deeper into the darkness of memory. I allow myself to miss him a little bit more. I miss him so, so terribly. His absence is like a bright light shining on my constantly. I blink against it, I try to hide from it, but it finds me where ever I turn. I cannot call him to ask him to help me with my computer. Or when my truck won't start. Or when I need money to pay the vet bills for my horse. Or to cry to him about how freaking hard living is right now. I cannot call him when I have a good day. Or when I have a bad day. I have to find new people to share my excitement and my sorrow with. As David says, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me" (2 Samuel 12.23)

Like Moses, my dad died at the top of a mountain. Well near the top, really. His death certificate says 200 feet below the summit of Long's Peak. Although we did not make the top together that day, I signed the register for both of us. And really, my dad's body did make it all the way, because they air-lifted him off in a helicopter that they landed on the summit.

Ok, I am hoping that writing this will help clear some fog so I can return to schoolwork. . .