the late night rambling of a fool

It is raining in Carlsbad night now … I can almost smell it. I miss
that open sky where you can watch the storm roll in for hours before it
gets there. I hated the reason WHY I had to be back in the desert- but
I didn’t hate the desert. Sometimes I miss it. But then again I am not
sure if I miss the desert or my parents. I connect the two — it’s
coming on 2 years since I went to New Mexico to take care of my dad
after my mom died. Two years without them. It feels really strange. I
find myself being sad a lot lately. Not weepy sad — well some days
weepy sad — but most of the time I am just sad. It hits me when LK is
bragging about the house to his parents. It hits me … I don’t have
anyone to brag to. I don’t have anyone to talk to about these kinds of
things anymore. I don’t have my mom to tell me she is proud of me, I
don’t have my dad to ask me how the electric is. Sometimes late at
night when I can’t sleep (which is most of the time), I lie in bed and
try to remember them. Some nights the memories flood in and some nights
I can’t even remember what color my mom’s eyes were. Every night is
different. Tonight is one of the nights where I need waders to get
through the memories they are so thick. Tonight is one of those nights
where I can’t stop thinking about it all. It is raining here tonight as
well, and listening to the drops hit the window reminded me of last
thunderstorm I had in New Mexico. My mom and dad were dead – I was
alone in the desert in a house I had no fondness for. Waiting on my
husband or my aunt or someone, anyone to come and be with me. There is
alone and then there is ALONE. I was more alone than I had ever been —
watching the lightning scatter across the sky and listening to the
thunder. Sleep just wouldn’t come. Two years later I still fight the
images of those weeks in the desert. The thoughts of “what if” — the
idea that maybe, just maybe if I had done one thing differently it all
would have worked out. There isn’t anything now I can do about it, and
somewhere deep inside I suppose I know I did all that a person can do.
Nights like tonight I replay the night my mom died. Driving across
country with LK, showing up at 11pm at my parents home – a home that I
had never seen before. Hearing the doctor go over the test results with
me. Listening to my dad’s voice break when he tells the doctor that it
is my decision — “She will know what to do.” … Which was his way of
saying “Please do what your mom would want because I just can’t let her
go.” The words escaping from my mouth — it didn’t seem real then and
they don’t seem real now. Watching my dad giving my mom back to the
wind one last time. Just when my brain starts to drift off and I think
I can maybe sleep at last… thoughts of my dad come rushing in. The
cancer, the losing battle, the nurses, the tears, all of the
conversations we had — all of the conversations I wish we would have
had. Watching him slip away — not being able to be at the hospital
with him as much as I would have liked. I wasn’t even over losing my
mom in that place just weeks before. The nightmare of that haunted me
every time I stepped foot in that place. His room was just around the
corner from hers. Same nurses, same faces — same smell. It was
horrible. Any time he was awake and I was there he would ask me about
the dogs and tell me to go home — at the end he wasn’t awake. The
drugs did that much for him. He made it clear the whole time I was
there — I was not there to take care of him. I was there to take care
of his dogs after he died. That is what he worried about. He was so
selfless. He could have been in pain beyond anyone’s comprehension and
he would ask the nurse if she would like something to eat or drink.
That week between his death and anyone being able to get out to New
Mexico with me I wondered if I would ever sleep again … well, so far
I haven’t really been able to sleep. To put it all out of mind and just
sleep – it isn’t insomnia but I wouldn’t call it sleep either. Eternal
napping, that’s what I guess you could call it. You know that bullshit
line people feed you when you’ve just buried a loved one … the pain
won’t go away but it will get better. It isn’t true. It doesn’t get
better. You are never the same. You may handle it a little better than
you expect but it never gets better. For me in fact it is worse. After
my mom died I was the strong one — I had to be. Everyone else broke
down … things had to be done and I had to do them. After my dad got
sick the same thing — things had to be done and I had to do them …
then he died. I moved back to Virginia and about 6 months after he died
I finally started to grieve for he and my mom. So if anything it has
not gotten better — but worse. Funny thing is — when I do sleep … I
dream about them, I just can’t escape. I need to shut the fuck up now –
nobody likes a whiner.