And then my daddy died.
It's funny... in the just over two weeks since he died, that's how I've come to refer to him: "Daddy." A title which, ironically, I barely ever called him in life. I don't remember; perhaps that was how I addressed him as a young child. But for as long as I can recall I merely called him Dad - with one specific exception. In 2004 I fell down a flight of stairs. The first several hours in the emergency room were a gradual progression of worsening events, as they first thought I had merely banged myself up pretty good but eventually came to discover that I had lacerated my liver and needed immediate emergency surgery. I'd been on the phone with my dad on and off all day, keeping him updated, and called him one final time as they were prepping me for surgery. As soon as he heard that word, he started talking about making arrangements to get to Chicago as quickly as he could - more difficult than it sounds because at the time he did not have a car that would make the trip, so it was going to require my sister to drive him 90 minutes to Waterloo where he could rent a car. I said, "Daddy, you don't have to come!" But as I hung up the phone, I realized that my unconscious use of the word "Daddy" was probably a sign that yes, he did.
I've been up and down the past two and a half weeks. There are moments where I get immersed in something I'm doing and feel almost normal. Then I feel guilty for feeling normal. Or for laughing. Or for realizing that I haven't thought about my dad for 30 minutes while I was immersed in something.
But you HAVE to be normal, no matter what people say. I'm getting lots of advice along the vein of, "Take the time you need. Everyone grieves differently. Do what you need to do." But the problem is, I can't just not go to work. It's not an option; mainly because as an independent contractor, if I'm not there, I don't get paid. I was already in an extremely fragile financial situation before this, and then I lost almost $700 in wages during the few days I went home to arrange my dad's funeral, and now most of the up-front estate expenses are falling to me as the oldest. So I go to work. But the problem is, when you show up for work, people expect that since you're there, you must be "okay enough" to be there. And even though most of the people at my various jobs, even most of my students, know what's going on, it's not like I can sit there and cry through rehearsal. So I suck it up, pull through the rehearsal or class... and end up unintentionally giving people the impression that everything is much better than it really is. And the more "okay" they think you are, the more they start diving back into a regular routine; piling more work on again, making more requests, expecting you to have all the time you had before.
But the reality is, I was too busy before this. And now, on top of all my regular commitments, I'm the administrator of my dad's estate, which is going to require hours of going through paperwork, multiple trips back to his house in Iowa, and heaven only knows what else. And what about time to mourn? I don't even know what that means, or how to do it. It's not like you can set aside an hour for "grieving" each day in your calendar, it doesn't exactly work like that. In fact, as I experienced yesterday, the dormant grief seems to sneak up and take over when I have the busiest day and can least afford to take a break and just cry.
