Grieving

My father-in-law passed away a few nights ago. He was 68, which is way too young for him to leave us all. We’re a collective mess trying to piece together his last few days bouncing from detective work to feeling overwhelming guilt for invading his privacy in order to try and connect the dots.

I’m locking this post here on Medium not because I’m looking for sympathetic claps and payment. I’m locking it so my wife can’t read it. Fortunately she used up her three free reads for the month, reading my prior bullshit stories. Those stories seem so trivial and useless right now. But I’m glad she read them so she cannot read this. It wouldn’t be fair; not now at least. I’m selfishly writing this for me.

So this is what an unexpected death feels like. I owe so many apologies to so many people who have experienced this or worse during their lifetime. I apologize for the “But he had a great long life” or “It could have been so much worse” rationalizations. Those were excuses in order for me to not face the cold hard truth of finality. I’d say those things hoping it would speed up the sadness cycle so we could all then move on.

Now I’m afraid of ever moving on.

I watched my wife throw up in the bushes outside of his apartment when the police officer offered his condolences. That was the first time it became really real even if we knew the entirety of the 45…