screams

I've had a few more days like the last one described. But today, these last few days, I want to sleep for days and scream:

YOU ARE SUFFOCATING ME.

LET ME CRY. LET ME MOURN. LET ME FEEL AS IF I'VE LOST SOMETHING, SOMEONE.

I FEEL AS IF I'VE LOST MYSELF.

I AM IN PAIN.

I CAN'T STAND THIS FEELING.

I JUST CAN'T BREATH.

But I can't scream, so I pray.


Dear Heavenly Father,

Give me strength to be a good daughter, sister, and friend. Provide me with patience and compassion. Help me settle my spastic heart that beats with anxiety and heartbreak. Allow me to discover the courage that I know is in me to put my own pride, wants, and needs aside for just a few more months. Let me love life when I feel that mine doesn't belong to me anymore.


And when the prayers aren't there (because really, how long has it been since I've been remotely religious?), I hike. I climb mountains to be closer to heaven, to be closer to Dad.


Dear Dad:

I'm sorry that you are gone. There are a lot of things that I was waiting to tell you...

I didn't hate you no matter how much it may seemed that I did. I just loved you too much to know what to even say.

I thought there would be more time. Time for us to catch up after this time away from each other. Time to realize that we are both people who have made mistakes. To hug and cry and say I love you.

Everyone tells me that you still talked about me. Said how proud you were of me. They also tell me that they thought I hated you. God, this hurts my heart.

I'm sorry that you couldn't hear me say that I was proud of you too. That despite your missteps that I could never deny who you were at your core. I find things in your office now that remind me of that person that I have always loved.

You would be proud of what I just accomplished and have kept to myself. It'll let me help the world in a way that only a few people are able to do. I'm scared, but excited. I need to remember to keep my center.

I understand you more now. How deep your compassion ran. Sometimes I feel the beginnings of resentment for leaving the mess that you did. And then I have to realize that this "mess" is only example after example of compassion. The reason why you didn't make as much money as you could have. Why you were so stressed all the time. Why you let in the crackheads, the bums, the dealers and users.

I'm sorry Dad. I don't have your compassion. I just can't. Not now.

It helps to see your efforts. Where you moved your will right before you died. The literature on living trusts. You were thinking about us, there just wasn't enough time.

Sometimes I feel as dead inside as you are dead now. I don't see much of a future ahead of me because I feel so empty and lost.

Sometimes I forget that you're even gone. And then I make myself imagine your body--your skin was so gray--on that table. Mom is screaming and sobbing behind me, and all I can think is how dead you look.

I am struggling Dad, but I have no doubt that I will do great things.

Love you.