Grieving

It was a month ago that my father died. Peacefully, in his sleep, at home, but quite unexpectedly. It was a month ago today that I unexpectedly made the long drive to the city, to be with my mother and my brother, and to help plan for my father's funeral.

In this past month I've been grieving, and I can't say it feels like any grief I've known before. At first, on some level, the reality of it all wouldn't quite sink in; that lasted maybe a week. Since then memories come back to me, scenes from childhood, flashbacks from years past, and they hit me with all the force of a sudden gut punch. They come unexpected and unbidden, sometimes at the oddest moments. Or a sudden tinge of feeling hovers over me, and I find myself in tears.

People over here in the countryside have been very kind to me, friends and neighbors. Some of them had met my parents in years past when they came over here to visit.

And I phone my Mom, and we talk on the phone, and we cry together. A huge piece of our lives has receded without warning into the past. I thought I had some acquaintance with grieving, but until this past month there were tracts and facets of it that I didn't know at all.