Life Goes On

Saturday night was tough. I couldn't sleep. This doesn't happen daily but as I get older, it happens more often. My mind wasn't racing. In fact, I couldn't actually 'think' about anything for any consistent amount of time and no bad song lyrics (or good ones for that matter) were stuck on repeat in my head. I wasn't feeling any specific emotion, except of course, frustration because I couldn't sleep. I wasn't anxious, over tired, restless, sad, mad, happy. I just couldn't sleep.

I've tried different techniques to fall asleep and sometimes they work but this night, nothing seemed to. Sometimes all it takes is a change of room...the guest room, the family room...a room that's different...and I can fall asleep but that didn't even work Saturday night.

My son had the same problem that night as well because at 4 AM he was tapping on my shoulder telling me he couldn't sleep. We decided to go to the family room and hang out together. I guess quality time is quality time regardless of the actual hour, right?

Sadly, my son's favorite channel is the Military Channel and I was subjected to two hours of a WWII documentary. I'm by no means a war or military buff but I suffered through it for the sake of my son. Finally, at 6 AM I decided to see if my favorite Starbucks was opened and we headed out. Sadly, it wasn't. Instead my son and I went to McDonald's so he could have breakfast while I watched and waited for the Starbucks doors to unlock.

Sitting in that McDonald's reminded me of the times I would go there with my father for breakfast. He loved McDonald's breakfasts. Until of course, his heart attack and then he wasn't allowed to go more than rarely. While my son sat and ate, I felt a wave of sadness come over me. I started to miss my dad. I always miss him but as time goes on, the sadness fades and life continues. Sometimes it creeps up on me and I start to feel this overwhelming sense of loss and it takes me a few minutes to get it under control...to be able to breathe normally again. No one really notices it, especially my son, thankfully. It seems silly that a simple trip to McDonald's would open the hole losing my dad has left in my heart but it's really those little things that impact me the most. I think that's what everyone says when they've lost someone they love but it never really seems true until you experience it yourself.

Because, as we all know, life goes on.

That's the part about losing someone that frustrates me now, at this stage of my losses. Life goes on. There is this big empty space in my heart...in my soul and I feel the loss so strongly but it's my personal loss. As I sat in that McDonald's with my son, I realized that while my parents, in my eyes, were the most amazing people to grace this earth, not everyone else thought that or even knew them. In fact, more people than not had no clue they even existed. The people in that McDonald's continued through their days and that day in particular, without my parents in their lives and weren't even phased by that while I sat there feeling a loss so profound and intense I couldn't breathe.

Life goes on. People wake up and do what they do every day. Buses take kids to school. Trains move masses of people to and from, to and from. Planes fly. Starbucks continues to make coffee (and thank God for that). Spring has even sprung here in Atlanta and we're already heading into summer. Life goes on. All without my dad and my mom.

Sitting in that McDonald's, I realized the unfairness of that. Life goes on even though the world lost two amazing people and it seems as if their mark on the world is gone now, too. Sure they have family to carry on. Little bits of their DNA are moving through the world but for me, that's not enough. It's all I've got but still, it's not enough. I realize most people feel this way when they lose someone they love and I know it's the way the world works but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I just can't comprehend that my parents are gone and every day goes on just like the day before. I'm doing a lousy job of explaining it. I guess the best I can say is that sometimes, like in that McDonald's, I want to stand up and scream at the top of my lungs, "My parents are dead and you're walking around like the world is the same but it's not!" Because for me, the world is different and it will never be the same.

The world for me is now the world of 'after my parents died' instead of the 'before my parents died' world.

I'm not sad every day anymore. Like I said, it comes and goes and that physical pain in my chest...that inability to breathe...that feeling of total helplessness, it's all gone. I spend most of my days happy and can think about my parents without feeling sad. That's progress for me and I feel I'm moving forward in my grief but every so often it slaps me in the face and I'm shocked to realize
that it's actually true, my parents are dead.

I thought maybe writing this would resolve something for me. That maybe I'd understand the feeling better but I don't. Life still goes on and there is still a sense of loss for me and a slight feeling of anger that no one else in the world really notices the difference. The sun still shines and the wind still blows but for me, everything is just a little different now. Not bad or worse, just different.