A line cast, a hope followedWednesday, July 26, 2006
Grief, eight months on
It seems like the files in the file cabinet that neatly held everything are now disorganized and bursting even though the file named "Dad" seemed to have enough room when I slid it in there. The capacity in the other files has become constricted and now I have to reorganize it all, bit by bit, not really knowing which pieces of paper have been squeezed out until I try and find them.
"That whole thing with Papa just sucked" I tell my daughter during errands Saturday.
"It sure did" she replies.
Even at 14 she understands better than anyone just how much is held in those few words between us. Months of days of hours of individual incidents, conversations, hopes, reversals, interventions, treatments that make up the specific story of my father's death. They lose their focus over time, condensing neatly down, the details not lost but dissipating out and in some ways infecting everything else in a minute way.
Wouldn't it be interesting if you could defragment your brain.
It seems like the files in the file cabinet that neatly held everything are now disorganized and bursting even though the file named "Dad" seemed to have enough room when I slid it in there. The capacity in the other files has become constricted and now I have to reorganize it all, bit by bit, not really knowing which pieces of paper have been squeezed out until I try and find them.
"That whole thing with Papa just sucked" I tell my daughter during errands Saturday.
"It sure did" she replies.
Even at 14 she understands better than anyone just how much is held in those few words between us. Months of days of hours of individual incidents, conversations, hopes, reversals, interventions, treatments that make up the specific story of my father's death. They lose their focus over time, condensing neatly down, the details not lost but dissipating out and in some ways infecting everything else in a minute way.
Wouldn't it be interesting if you could defragment your brain.
