I will never forget this feeling, the days and weeks after my dad died. It’s like I was completely disconnected from reality and just wondered about so many things.

My mom, sister, and I were just zombies that first week. We would sit in silence at times. Other times I soothed my mom from her crying. But most of the time I sat there in a paused state of mind thinking, how can the world keep going? How can people still walk their dog? How can people go shopping? How can anyone do anything because the world I knew, had completely stopped. My world crashed, but everything and everyone else kept going. Didn’t they know what tragedy just happened? Why aren’t they in this same state of mind? The brain is funny like that. Maybe it was just trying to process what happened.

In all that blur, I don’t really remember much of that first week that I spent at my families house, away from my own family. I don’t think any of us really ate. I don’t remember all the calls I made on my mom’s behalf. Hoping there wasn’t a clause in my dad’s life insurance policy that if he took his life, the spouse couldn’t get the money. Having to explain this to the woman on the other line was hard. How would my mom be able to live now? I don’t remember calling everyone in my dad’s address book. All his friends that were just as shocked as we were. I don’t remember my sister taking the phone over from my mom because she couldn’t go over in detail how she found my dad. It was too hard. the police sympathized with her. I don’t remember calling to tell my Aunt, my mom’s twin and best friend, what happened to my dad. She was so worried about her. I don’t remember if I even slept. I don’t remember how I even took care of my 6 month old that I brought with me! I don’t remember meeting with the funeral home staff and planning his burial and funeral. I don’t know how I made the 8 hour drive with my baby. It was like I did nothing at all.

My brain didn’t remember most of those details until a few months after. I couldn’t recall much of what we all did until later. The brain has a way of trying to protect us, saving those memories for later when we are more stable to mentally relive them.

I will never forget what it’s like when the world stops, and I am stuck frozen in time trying to figure out what just happened. I will never forget how proud I am of my sister and my mom. And of me. We’ve made it through the first rough years. We are coming up on the anniversary of his death. It will be 6years. Wow! Sometimes that seems forever ago and at the same time it feels like yesterday. My mom lives in the same town I live in (right down the street!). She loves it here. She reads books and we discuss them, she loves puzzles and I am amazed at how she can put a 1000 piece puzzle together so quickly. She watches movies and loves chatting with her sister every week. She faithfully uses her treadmill and climber every morning and picks up my mail for me everyday. She babysits my kids whenever I need her to. She loves to cook dinner for my family. My daughter recently requested her lasagna for her birthday dinner. She loves to go on shopping trips to the city and her favorite shopping buddy is my husband! I am still deciding on if that’s a good idea, those two together, because they end up spending hours in the stores and spending way more money than they should 😁

This quickly turned into a bragging post about my mom, but she sure deserves the recognition! She was married to my dad in June of 1969 and never apart for more than a week! That’s 48 1/2 years together. I am so proud of her, being able to live independently and prosper. She is very independent (probably where I got that from 😅) and continues to try and do as much as she can for herself.

If your world has stopped recently, and you are just going through the motions of life, seeing only grays, I feel you! I’ve been there! Soon enough you will see the colors of the flowers and trees, feel the breeze in your hair, and feel the warmth of the sun. Your life will come back. You have to be proud of yourself! Have faith in yourself. Time does help, it may not completely heal the wound (it never goes away) but time will bring happiness.

Hugs!

Sarah