Amends to the dead - Maturity

I took the day off yesterday and woke up late. I bundled myself up and turned the various heaters on in the house and proceeded with some over due chores. I have felt pretty good lately and a little overwhelmed by the spiritual growth I have been having. I am not sure why but I believe the god of my understanding knows just what I need when I need it and not a minute sooner.

I felt anxious about the day with so many opportunities to work on my to do list. Analysis paralysis I guess you could say so I decided to write for a few moments just to avoid beginning any of those things on the list.

I started with the usual gauging my mood for the day and recapping my thoughts about my post yesterday. Then my thoughts turned to my father and the grief he must have felt when he lost my mother. My recent experience with grief has given me the opportunity to experience what he must have experienced. The death of the dream is what I call it and for me I didn't even want to be in the relationship anymore.

I wrote a story from his perspective the night my mother died. He told us how he sat in the parking garage that night not wanting to face what he knew was ahead of him. He said his legs were like lead and he couldn't move. To know that you are about to lose the most important person in your life must have been devastating. Facing that at that moment.

He fought hard for my mother harder than she did, I think. He took her to every kind of doctor all over the country even when we didn't have the money. He even tried an illegal drug that was made from apricot pits, this combined with a macrobiotic diet. When this didn't work we went to faith healing services. This was our life for two and a half years.

Writing the story from his perspective made me realize just how devastated he must have been. I have been there recently and it if fresh in my mind the debilitating pain that nothing can sooth. Day after day just going through the motions of the bare necessities and even sometimes not even they were taken care of. I am not saying I experienced the same loss but I can have more compassion for him.

This was my father, a man with so much grief he shut down. I remember the morning he woke me up to tell me about my mom, she had gone on to be with Jesus. He couldn't function without her. He stopped paying bills and stopped eating.

All this is familiar to me and for the first time in my life I can really put myself in his place an not looking at it through the lens of a child. I could always say he did the best he could and I realized that long ago but being able to put myself in his shoes has changed me to the core.

I feel I understand as I never did before what it was like to be him. I couldn't have done that without experiencing it myself in my own way. I loved him and he loved me and writing helped me to heal and to say I am sorry for not recognizing his struggle sooner.

He is gone now but this is about my spiritual growth and I felt his presence yesterday while I was writing. I am growing up and once more using what I have learned in the program to find peace with the past.