this time it was you in 2016

January 7, 2016
1:48pm

So, I hate to make this my first entry of the year, but it was supposed to be one of the last and I never got around to it. Avoiding at its finest.

Well, my uncle died. Almost two weeks ago now. It was super early in the morning on the 27th. The funeral was at 10am on New Years Eve. Way to end the year huh?

I guess mostly I’ve been avoiding this entry because I’m having trouble putting it all into words. There’s a part of me that wants to say, “that’s just the way life goes. What’s done is done. There’s absolutely nothing I can do about it so I need to accept and move on.”
But there’s the other part of me, the part that’s currently winning, that wants to feel all the sadness, and anger, and be completely swallowed up by the grief.

Because he was my uncle. The last of my relatives in this town. The one that I’ve gotten to know so well and become so close to in the last few years. Like I’m pretty sure I saw and spoke to him more than his own kids have since we’ve entered our adult lives.

He left owing me a lot of steak dinners!

Who’s going to bring me the newspaper every week? Who’s going to make jokes with me about there being nothing good in it? And who’s going to say that he only checks it to make sure his picture isn’t in the obituary section?

Except this time it was. And we can’t even make stupid jokes about it anymore.

I know it is the way it was supposed to be. No matter my selfish intentions of wanting him back here. He barely lasted a week after starting dialysis. He hated it there and I was trying to think of a million different ways I could make it more comfortable for him, but I never even got a chance to try.

This has hit me hard, if you haven’t figured that out yet. Probably worse than any other death/funeral has hit me before. I mean, I’ve been going to these things since I was young, but kids don’t process stuff the way adults do. My adult brain is over-processing and causing me pain. So much emotional pain.

I knew this was going to be a bad season. I had a feeling it would include something devastating.

I don’t think I’ll recover from this one. It isn’t causing a huge mess in my life. I’m still able to function and live on in a ‘normal’ sort of way. But I won’t recover. I know it. I can feel the missing piece inside. The hole that will never be filled again.

There are so many things I wanted to say. Better words I had in mind to express my feelings on the entire situation, but they’re gone now. I waited too long and all I can think about now is sadness, and despair, and trying so very hard not to cry at work as I type this up.

I’ll leave it at this for now. Maybe stop by and add some words as they come back to mind. But there isn’t much more to say. He’s gone and my heart’s broken. That’s basically it.

rose.
5:28pm