I'm so happy no one reads this

Such a freedom, to write and be completely anonymous.

So odd that I had this whole post written and then it got deleted by my hand or "someone else's".

Isn't that tbe way, though? We struggle to find our truth and there are so many whose motivations are to keep that under the dirt. When their own truth is at jeopardy, they will fight tooth and nail to preserve it, even if it is all the shite of the bull. And even if they know that on some level.

I KNOW I'm a mess ... I'm just not sure completely why.

Post Mortem - Before the Fall

It was suggested that I write everything down that happened. I'm very mindful that my experience is probably different than that of the others who were there, which fascinates me; in my old life, it would've disturbed me greatly.

He was diagnosed just before Christmas. We had been worried about him for a couple years, honestly, between his weight loss and the general sense that he had been slowing down. When I went home for the holiday, we had a long talk about treatment options and whether he would undergo treatment at all. I must admit that his diagnosis gave me the sense that he wasn't going to make it out, but I thought maybe I was just reacting out of fear and wasn't thinking clearly ... I didn't tell him this, of course. By the time I left, the decision had been made that if his chances of survival were good, he would do the treatment; if he didn't have much of a shot, he would enjoy what he had left ... perhaps go to Florida and enjoy some golf.

The news came a couple weeks after Christmas -- his chances were 60% with treatment; not great, but not awful, either. He started treatment shortly thereafter; chemo weekly and radiation M-F.

I didn't take notes, but he ended up in the hospital for a couple days not long afterwards - pericarditis, which was painful and caused his breathing to be difficult. The road downhill had apparently begun.

purging

it's so hard to figure out what to keep and what to sweep away. photos and documents that mean nothing now may be important to me later, or even important to future generations.

i'm cleaning out my dad's personal effects, he died just about 40 days ago, on my birthday.

hyperventilating at times, tears falling. a life gone from this earth, but still here in so many ways. it feels like the ultimate push-off, deciding what part of him remains in our care and what goes to the landfill.

this is the last time i'll be in this place and it feels sad and exhausting. i want to take it all in and burn it into my synapses, but it's overwhelming and i'm scared that the wrong things will be etched forever.

there was a time, for about a year and a half, when we didn't speak ... it was my choice. i'm not sure now what it was that pushed me over the edge; i think it might've been him paying someone $50 to shoot my dog. it was the culmination of years of verbal abuse and continually-crashed boundaries, i remember that much. it also might've had something to do with when i heard (years after the fact, mind you) that he had held a gun to my mother's head.

i'm seeing those letters now, the ones i wrote to him to explain what a bastard he had been ... i can't bring myself to read them. i'm torn between going outside to burn them right now and saving them to perhaps gain some insight later, when i can work up the guts to look them over.

fifteen years ago, he made a dramatic change. he was no longer a prick, but he still drove me crazy. so much easier to get along with, we repaired our relationship ... well, as much as we could without him really acknowledging the things he had done (though he did say in a letter once that he "had been a putz"). at the end, i'd say we were pretty good friends, and i know we loved each other a great deal. we talked often, several times a week. he still treated me like a child, but i think that's what dads do, especially ones that are trying to make up for decades of being an asshole.

now i just miss him.