Anger

Anger, I'm told, is an important step in the grieving process, but I have constantly found that these steps are often not in an expected order, nor limited to the classics. For instance, mac and cheese was a major step in my process, often overlapping with other stages; sadness - that there was no more mac and cheese, bargaining - with Kienan to get me more mac and cheese, acceptance - that I had to eat other things besides mac and cheese etc... The day that my father was moved into hospice, I left work to go home and make chicken soup, the only action that I could think of that would be useful, futile, but delicious. After a truly epic meltdown in the middle of the Wholefoods produce section I got home to cook. When in doubt fall back on old Jewish tradition and culinary wisdom.

Kienan came home and saw me crying over the stove as I stirred the pot and asked if there was anything he could do. Now, that is usually the first question asked of a grieving person and the horrible thing is that there is nothing you can do for them, no one can cheat death. In that moment I all I wanted was a giant, and I mean enormous, vat of mac and cheese from Wawa so I sent him out for a tub of mac and cheese. Kienan ran out of the house, eager and desperate I'm sure for something to do in the face of an impossible and unsolvable pain. Kienan came home and presented the fruits of his efforts and it was the single serve, tiny thimble of mac and cheese. I was instantly inconsolable and practically melted onto the kitchen floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Kienan was horrified and all I could get out between gasping cries was "I wanted a HUGE tub of mac and cheese!"

"Do you want me to go back?" Kienan asked to the now unrecognizable goblin that had replaced his boyfriend.

"YES!" I screamed as he slowly started to back away.

"Wait!....I'll still take that while you go." My talons snatched the Barbie sized container of mac and cheese from him as he ran away and I proceeded to eat it sitting on the floor next to the stove while crying until he came back with the family sized barrel of mac and cheese that I was craving.

This one one of many instances of the grief monster. It would strike in unexpected times at unexpected places and to me it really did feel like an alien force that would take over my body.

Letter to my father about Anger. Dated 7/29/19

Dear Dad,

It seems like I'm doing the steps out of order. I have been having a lot of anger recently and I am baffled as to why. Here we are 8.5 months into this process and NOW I get angry? That really pisses me off. I didn't do my writing assignment last week. I sat down to write, looked at some pictures and went through some documents and suddenly I was absolutely enraged. I just couldn't stand the notion that no matter how many letters I write, quotes I read, candles I burn or tears I shed you still have the nerve to be gone! How can you be gone but all of this stuff is still here? Maybe the Vikings had the right idea, sending the dead off with all their treasure and setting it on fire. A much easier method of estate planning.

Not getting to share the day to day with you kills me. I am so angry that you died when I am only 30 and I still have so much left to do that I wanted you there for. I may have mentioned how jealous I am of my brother that he got 60 years of having a dad and in many ways I feel cheated. Maybe I'm angry at you for having a kid at 52. What where you thinking? I don't want to be angry at you, Sherry struggles with this too sometimes. We want to cherish memories and not struggle with post death questions because you don't get to write back. All of these feelings have nowhere to go. I think I read somewhere that grief is just love that has nowhere to go and I feel like I'm standing on a cliff and nothing can fill that space. Behind me is my life with you and in front of me is a void.

I am angry that the world moves on. I am angry that people think I'm fine or don't understand why I blow up or loose my cool when they they've done something wrong or insensitive. It makes it so hard to relate to people. On Friday I was so sleep deprived and miserable that I snapped. I lost it in my car while driving to work and hit another car and couldn't stop sobbing. A very kind woman/spirit who saw the fender bender ran up to my window and said "What's wrong?"

All I could get out was "My father is gone and I don't know what to do!"

She leaned into my window and hugged me and said "Baby it's going to be okay, you are going to be okay."

I shocked myself in that moment of raw intensity. How this pain is still so close to the surface. I was fooling myself that I was this calm, collected grief expert - that was a fun lie. Now I feel angry that I didn't fall apart more when everyone was expecting it of me. Now my friends think I should be fine and I don't want to pretend that my heard bleeds every day. I am angry and scared that I have so much more of my life ahead that I will have to feel like this.

I am not angry at you for dying, but I am angry that I am so young and will have lost you for the majority of my life. Parents are supposed to be there for more than 30 years. Yes there are plenty of people that lose parents earlier, my mom lost her dad in a helicopter crash when she was 17, but that isn't my loss and doesn't negate the rage I feel at your absence.

It seems impossible that this is something that I can not solve.

I am angry that the world keeps moving. Why hasn't everything stood still? How can this loss not stop time like like it did for me? I am angry that you were so much older my entire life and everyone assumed you were my grandfather. I am angry that you were so withdrawn in so many ways and couldn't express yourself. I am angry that you didn't say I love you the last time I saw you. I am angry that you won't be at my wedding and that there will be a sadness on a day like that. I am angry that I don't get to learn more from you and that you had so much that you didn't share. I am angry that I feel like I'm moving on and not mourning all the time. I am angry that you were not a partner in your dying, you left us to fend for ourselves, unwilling or unable to come to grips with the reality of your own mortality. I am angry that so much time was taken from us and so many restrictions were placed on my life at a time when I could have been with you and needed you. I know you were protecting me by not fighting for more time but I lost either way. Your marriage to my mother was only 5 years but the divorce seemed to go on forever with me stuck in the middle of an impossible situation. I am angry that you are gone. I am angry that my love for you has nowhere to go.