Spanglish

I'm watching it.

In the past week, my life has been turned upside down. My world stopped spinning while every one elses kept going. Death doesn't make anything stop. Bills are still due, the car still needs gas, the dog still needs to be let out. And when the plants and the flowers and the cards start pouring in from all angles, you no longer have a place to eat because everything covers the table and counters. Nobody acts normal. There are people hangin around and bringing food. Going to sleep seems easy after the day, staying asleep is extremely difficult but waking up is the hardest. Once everything is remembered, getting back to sleep is impossible. Thankfully the rest of the house is in the same boat, so the 4 am body wake up call has eased it's way through the halls, down the stairs, under the door and into the brains of my parents. Then it waits in the closets and under the beds until 3-4 am when it can ooze it's way back through my house. I can see it in the carpets. I can see it in the corners of the window sills. Just waiting. Always waiting to wake us up and bring the news, fresh and new.

Locking one's door is extremely cathartic. As though you're locking yourself in as opposed to locking everything else out. You can invite anyone or anything in you want, but NOTHING can get in that YOU didn't invite. It's wonderful. A total powertrip! This past week I locked out sobriety, incidently locking in extreme intoxication. I was sincerely surprised at how much alcohol I could consume and still be awake.

I searched for comfort unabashedly. I saw my friends and went to my old work. I talked constantly and then didn't talk at all. I was on my phone every waking hour looking for some sort of normalcy. Something that would take me back to just a week pryor. Just a day before Easter. I searched for it in the wrong person, though. I made a mistake and I paid for it.

Never search for love and understanding from a selfish and ignorant child. You'll be left emptier and more alone than you've ever felt. No matter how much they believed they loved you. They were wrong. And they will show it.

The deepness of your sorrow for the loss of a loved one will stretch further than you thought it could. You will stare at the vastness of what lies before you and weep. You will carry the weight of yours and your families sorrows on your shoulders and look for more sorrows to gather atop them. Your pain will work its way from your heart to your lungs, to your ribs. You'll feel it creep to you thighs and shins, down further and further until it spreads through your toes. You'll feel is climb up your chest and wrap itself around your neck to your face. You'll watch it wind it's way around your shoulders, then elbows, then twist down your fingers. When you seek comfort in those unable to provide even the slightest bit of ease, your soul will quake. The very foundations upon which you have built your feeble house of safety will crumble and you will find yourself worse off than when you started. When the purest of needs for comfort is rejected, the purest of agonies will sieze your spirit and strangle the little vitality that is left after the death of a cherished one. You will gasp. You will cry. And when you desire nothing else but to forget, you will remember.

But when you seek comfort from those who are both physically and emotionally able to provide, it will stamp out the agony. It's light will blind the pain into submission and your foundation can be rebuilt, slowly.

Darkness is simply the absence of light. And the light was shown on me by Allan who put aside his pain to tend to and garden mine. Emily, who gathered me in her arms and the arms of her mother and squashed the darkness. Katie, who checked on me daily. Rachel, who listened to me cry and was there from the 11th hour. Cristal, who somehow has shown me such unconditional love, it's blinding. and Kelly, who came to my rescue when it was critical.

My foundation is rebuilt. My house of safety is no longer feeble. And the long journey of mourning has begun.