Grief

It was early in the morning. Sara didn't know what had awoken her, when she heard her mom answer the telephone. And heard her starting to cry.

The next hours flew by in a daze. It seemed like there was only grey fog, a thick and heavy layer covering my mind. It felt soothing and I was truly grateful for it. My mother and my brother had gone to the hospital to - I don't know - do something. Maybe stating that it indeed was my father that died. I don't know who else would suddenly have lain in the bed he had occupied a few hours ago.

It is hard to remember. I don't want to remember. Don't want to be reminded of the hours I sat on the cold bathroom floor, my cheek pressed against the hard stone floor hoping someone would shake me and wake my up from this nightmare. I wasn't crying and it felt like I would never cry.

My family, or what was left from them, returned from the hospital and we started the day. How can you start a day when the very first thing you experienced was your dad dying.

Arrangements had to be made, the funeral home had to be called, people who's business was to deal with pain and grief and your suffering. How can you work in this job and not suffer with every person you meet? But then as long as it doesn't affect you in such a personal way it's okay. I could have handled it. Had it not chosen me to experience death. Death so close, so reachable, so near. It felt worse than dying myself.

Had it chosen me, had I been lying in that hospital it would have been alright. I would have thought about all the things I would never see, all the things I would never experienced but I could have dealt with that. I could have said goodbye and I would have moved on.

But I was the one left behind. I had to take care of my life from now on. And not only of my own life. It felt like I had to carry my family with me. I was just a girl, yet I had to suffer like a mother and a son.

And all the 'friends of the family'. They were calling, stopping by, their faces dark and worried yet not understanding and caring at all. They were like snakes, trying to break the stronghold I had built around myself and slithering into my heart, touching the sore spot and tearing in apart, injecting their poison, their thoughts and opinions.

It was not fair that I could not suffer the way I needed to, because they wanted me to look like they expected me to look. If I cried and they gave me a tissue it would make them feel better. Give them the confidence that they had done everything they could. But didn't.

All they did was force me into hiding. Hiding my own feelings and hurts and pains and showing what they wanted to see.