Try so hard to get out of the way of that runaway train.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

music: incubus

Why the urge to update this? It is the middle of the night, and I am wide awake. My hours of sleep are by no means normal or standard. I grab pieces of sleep here and there. Up early enough to have it still be dark out, and sleeping while the sun is still bright in the sky. A writer's work is never done, and that is what I am. The past twelve months have been a combination of highs and lows. Good and bad mixes all together. I didn't know at this time last year that I was spending the last few months I would with my father. November 11th came and took him from me. He became ill before that, but it was still sudden. We didn't really know how bad it was until October hit because he decided to hide the fact he was that sick from my brother and I. Watching someone you love go from the strong man that was working until he was 83 to the man that can't even get out of bed to walk the short distance from his bed to the bathroom is a hard thing to do.

My brother and I watched our father wither away right in front of us, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. We took him to the hospital, and five days later there was a cop at our door telling us he had died. The hospital said they couldn't reach us by phone when the phone hadn't rang once that night. The events since his death sound like a bad horror novel. His body was lost. We still don't have his ashes or a death certificate. No service with loved ones was had. Not that my father cared about any of that. He wanted to be somewhere else. He wanted to be with my mother. She died sixteen years ago, and he was waiting for the day that he could be with her again. He is with her now. I am confident of that.

Since his death, my brother and I have worked to keep things together. Working freelance seems to be feast or famine, but I do okay. I could live on my own in a room or small apartment somewhere, but my brother and I stick it out together. We have our tempers and our angry moments, but things are good about 80% of the time. It is us and the cat. My life is spent writing. Working to make ends meet. Missing my father and my mother that left us long before him. I haven't spoken to my one brother in months, and I don't know how long we'll even have him on this planet with health and heart condition.

Life goes on. Some days are harder than others. Some days try to break me. The death was too sudden. It left this huge whole. At least with my mother, she was ill for years before her body finally gave out. My father kept the fact he had emphysema to himself. His lungs were destroyed slowly, and he smoked until weeks before his death. Thing is he knew what he was doing. We didn't. PSA of the day. Don't smoke. It does kill. My father is proof of that. Yes, life does go on, but it is the heart that breaks a little bit day by day. I go on though.