All Done

In the months after my dad's death, I went to weekly meetings of a grief support group that was comprised of people who had lost a loved one at some point within the past year.  There were about a dozen group members, ranging in age from a college student to a woman in her 70's.  At the second meeting, we were asked to go around the circle with each of us telling what we had been thinking about that week. One woman, who had lost her adult daughter to cancer, said she had sat for hours staring at a pile of blank thank-you note cards that she knew she needed to write to thank people who had helped her during her daughter's illness and during the week of the funeral.  She said that she just hadn't been able to start the process of writing the notes.  She thought for a minute, obviously deep in thought, and then quietly said to the group, "I guess I feel like if I get those notes written, I'll be all done with the whole process of taking care of details for my daughter.  Of my grief process.  Maybe even of my daughter, and that's not something I think I can survive."  Tears fell silently down my face as I listened to her talk and wished with all my heart that I didn't understand just what she meant.

I feel that way about talking about my dad's illness, about his life, and about my grief.  If I stop talking (writing) about it, I feel like I'll be all done, and, like the woman in the support group, that's not something I think I can survive.

Damn, I miss him, every day.