Not a laugh riot

Things have totally, royally sucked around here, dudes. There is no way around it. I am sad. Not sad, actually. More like saaaaaaaaaaad. I also have a strong layer of confused on top of the sad. I just can't really process the depth of the sadness I am feeling. How is it possible to be this sad? How do people do this? Where do you even put it? I do not know.

On the flight back from Michigan, Nordic Boy and I were not seated together, which was unfortunate because I full on bawled the whole trip. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like having a 6 hour crying fit while sandwiched between two strangers who can't get away from you. Sorry, two strangers, for all that facial leaking in your grill, whoever you are.

Speaking of facial leaking, I was the person in my family that was asked to get up at the funeral and talk about my dad. My initial response to this was Haaaaa-WUT? Because a big part of that job was two-fold: standing up and also speaking. Those were two things I was pretty sure I would not be able to carry off. But, I wrote something down on a piece of paper and put it in my purse. Nordic Boy said if I needed support to just look over at him the whole time, to which I said Are You Fecking Nuts because if there is one thing that would break me down even harder it would be looking into Nordic Boy's crying mug. So I got up there, wondering if I would be able to get it out, and I did. It was the biggest mess you have ever seen in your life, but I did it, sobbing all the way through.

Seeing my mom at that funeral? That shit alone was enough to break me right open. My parents were married for over 50 years, you guys. Not only that, they were partners, best friends, everything to each other. No matter what each of them had going on with work or anything else, my parents met up at home for lunch every. single. day of their marriage. They went to the store together, they went on walks together, they talked endlessly, they did everything together. They smiled when they saw each other. They continually cracked each other up. They supported each other in every last thing. They were a team. My mom said, when my dad was dying, that she held his hand. He would stop breathing for a minute, and she would think he was gone, and then he would draw another breath. Then he would stop breathing again, and on like that. "I think he could feel me holding his hand, and I think he kept coming back for me. So I decided to let go, so he could let me go," is what she told me. And she did. And he went.

I don't know what to even do when I think about that.

So now I am back in Seattle, and I wake up every day, and I cry, and Nordic Boy holds me in bed, and then I get up, and I go to work, and I smile at people, and I say thank you a hundred times a day, because people are sorry for my loss, which I believe they are (even when expressed in a weird way like that one person who tried to tell me that she knew how I was feeling because she felt the same way the last time she broke up with some ex-boyfriend of hers). I have several beautiful emails that friends have sent me saved and when I get a spare moment I find myself pulling out my phone and scrolling through them, reading them over and over. People tell me stories about their losses, and ask me if I am ok, and people ask Nordic Boy and Biogirl how I am doing, and we all say I am doing ok, even though it's not true. I go out to dinner with friends and go to parties and I laugh at people's jokes. I pay attention to people at work because paying attention to people is my job. I find the thing I want to do the most is talk about my dad, so the conversations I have with my friends who didn't know him where they ask me about him help. The conversations with friends who did know him help too, because anyone who knew my dad knew what an extraordinary person he was, and it is lovely to hear about that from other people. He was the kind of person that was gentle and humble, but his kindness was so large that it sort of knocked people over when they were around him. I think this is why so many people in my life have, over the years, become very attached to my dad, and why he was a father figure to so many of them. Hearing from those people is so wonderful. My dad was well-loved.

So, I don't know, you guys. I just keep getting up every morning and doing my day. I guess that's what you do?