Malone feels alone
Malone starts grieving, but doesn’t know where to start, or who to grieve for
It was my dad’s funeral a few days ago. I feel low. I miss my dad. I also miss my boyfriend. I want to snuggle up to him but I can’t because I dumped him the day before my dad died. Not great timing.
“I spent ten months while he was dying really grieving, because that’s when I lost him, when he became bed-ridden and incapable”
It feels like I always have to go through things alone. I live on my own; I had a child on my own, (not literally, I wasn’t at the side of the motorway waiting for an ambulance – hey, things weren’t that bad). Now I have to deal with grieving on my own. I want a hug. I can’t have one. I wonder if I want a hug from anyone else?
Hmm. But there’s something in the comfort of the known. That warm comfortable place in that armpit of that person you spent so much time with. That place where that person knows you are an emotional, demanding, unreasonable knobhead but they still like you and they even love you for it. Splitting up with someone is a grieving process all of its own.
I don’t know where to start with my dad’s grieving. I feel a bit ‘non’. Not necessarily numb, more ‘nothingy’. I spent ten months while he was dying, grieving. Really grieving, because that’s when I lost him. I lost him ten months ago when he became bed-ridden, incapable, and dependent. That wasn’t him being so immobile and quiet.
Sometimes he would sleep in a morphine slump, some days he would jolt about seeing things that weren’t there and sometimes he’d chat away like he was fine. It was so confusing. I never knew whether I was coming or going. I’d go away for a break and just spend the time worrying. Was it good enough a visit if it was the last time I saw him? I’d run back to see him, say a few more things he’d find hard to handle.
I’d mention dying; he’d try not to talk about it. “Dad what kind of funeral do you want?” He didn’t want to talk about it. I said “a happy clapper one maybe?” He laughed.
In the end he had a nice Irish lady doing a humanist service. I wrote a speech, trying to desperately not forget all the relatives’ names in case they got the hump at not being mentioned. After all, they flew in all over the country to attend the wake.
The wake consisted of eight hours of drinking vodka. Drinking with relatives though isn’t like a piss-up down Audio on a Saturday night. You have to keep your dignity, especially at your dad’s wake. So the wake just turned into me ranting about how great everyone was, how great my dad was, and everyone telling me how great my speech was. The humanist said my dad would have been proud of my comic timing. Then went on to tell me how she used to be in a comedy act about a masturbating nun. My dad would have loved that. He’d be smirking in his grave.
Rest in peace, and also love and laughter daddy. I will try to now, too.
