The dark of the year

Monday, December 31, 2012

I am still feeling quite down.  Christmas isn't Christmas without Dad.  I feel like an orphan.

Inside, in the dark of my heart...   I don't understand the point of life.  I'm trying to work my way out of it, but it's not easy.  One breath at a time.

It's not something you talk about in polite company.  I shield it from everyone, because, really, what could they possibly do?  Shower me with platitudes?  Try, pointlessly, to cheer me up?  If I am helpless and powerless, how would everyone else feel?

I don't want to share these depths.  I don't want the reactions - the requisite pity, the worry.  What else would come of it?  I have no use for that attention.  I have no use for the inevitable added pressure, to fix it in order to make everyone else feel better.  I have enough on my plate.



It's funny the things that make me think of Dad.  Today, it was slicing a banana. 

He used to eat these giant bowls of cereal for breakfast.  He would always cut up a whole banana and put it on top, his bowl almost overflowing.  In recent years he switched to blueberries.  I swear he'd put a pint of blueberries on top and then smile and say (realizing that you might have observed how many he was eating) how good they were for you - antioxidants and all.

A stark contrast against Dad this past year, battling cancer.  My heart hurts thinking of the single crab rangoon he could barely choke down at the Chinese buffet.


I miss him.