April 15 today.

I’ve been preparing for this. Or I’ve been preparing for this? Question mark.

Five years ago I could have never gotten through any of this. Not just the virus, the death of my father. I didn’t have any of the skills I have now. None of the tools. Someone else had them for me. Told me what to use and how to use them and sometimes just to never. We are all preparing for loss we don’t want to prepare for? Unbearable loss. We are learning the tools we will need to die ourselves even. The ones to be brave in the event our last breaths are challenged. For me it’s each one. Breathing each breath is more brave for me than running into a burning building to rescue others. I wouldn’t even hesitate. I wouldn’t even think about it. In fact I may have thought it through that It could happen before it did. Walked by a building and determined it was possible it could catch on fire. What would I do? Yet I sit and have to remind myself to stay put in the moment so I can breath and not die years ago. My fears are contorted and confused. I shouldn’t be so afraid to breath deeply and stay here in the now.

I am backwards today. I’ve gone back in time to see if I could survive something I’m currently surviving. I’ve thought through the thought that I would die. Am I doing this to feel the certainty that I’m better off now? That now that I have control of my tools I’m good? Why would I think to a point I am gone? When I’m right here? The certainty is absurd. Because I’m not dead. I put myself in a difficult place to be able to help myself get through difficult things. I left so I could be the one to prepare me for things I needed to prepare for. All along I’ve been preparing to die but I haven’t. Or preparing for my dad to die. And he did. And I am ok. Just ok. Not great but not dead. I don’t want to join him in his never never land. I don’t want to drink into oblivion. I don’t want to not think about it. I don’t even want to escape. Run. Which used to be my go to escape. To escape.

I’m taking each day as best I can. Some harder than others. Some still hard even if they aren’t hard. I’m drinking water. Eating more than usual really. I have fallen in love with the ease of an app to order food. Specifically because it tells me little hints that my password contains this and that and also a symbol. It helps me remember, so I keep buying food from them and having it brought right to me. It’s temporary I’ve told my kids. Enjoy it for a while. I want the extra time to sit and read and watch princess Sophia with my daughter not destroy my kitchen and think of measurements and tasks like feeding little people. Not when the chipotle app can.

I was able to help write my dads last story. No one wanted to. Even me. But I had been thinking of it for weeks. What to say. How to say it. The fact that it should be told as if he wrote it himself. Most people think he did. I could have written it with my eyes closed. Five years ago I would have been dead apparently and not been able to. Which is ridiculous. Except true. Except I am not so it’s not.

I lost my pruners. I’ve had them for 20 years. Same pair. They are red, they have a leather holster they have worn through twice. They never aren’t with me or on me. They are my side arm. They form my hand perfectly. They are made of metal yet somehow seem worn to my grip like the insole of a shoe. It’s not likely possible until I lost them and used someone else’s. They just weren’t my hand.

I assumed someone stole them. I would never lose them. Never be this careless. But one day my dad died and I had to clean his yard. I was wearing sweats with no belt loops. Because sweats with belt loops doesn’t make sense. None of this day made sense. I carried them around to trim plants from the year before. It started to rain. I cleaned up and took them inside where I put them in my daughters backpack to remember them. I thought. I looked for days for them. I borrowed my dads in the meantime. Same exact pruners and holder. They just weren’t for my hands. They were for my dads. Close. I felt close to him and also like a child trying to use his tools for the first time. Like my hands weren’t big enough for this. I used them for a few days. Then one day my daughter comes out with my leather holder. She said it was under her bed. Which meant that’s where my pruners were. Which they were. Like all strange things are. Under the bed is where things are. I don’t like to look under the bed.

My oldest daughter with Down syndrome likes to hide things and I often forget to ask her where things are. Until I find strange things in my pots and pans cabinets like socks that bother her. Or toys she doesn’t like of her sisters under the sink. Or behind beds. She is coping in her own way? I put my pruners away and am going to keep using my dads. His seem…more used. But less. They need to be kept being used so they don’t forget they can be. I want my hands on the handles where for years his were. We can hold hands like I’m 2 and crossing the street, while I work as an adult who wants his help across the street still. I need his tools to help me. Mine are right and fit but his are his. Better. I know how to use them. I’ll be fine.

I’m trying so hard to bring myself back to today. To get out of years ago. It’s one thing to go back and reminisce over past times but I have stayed too long and even changed the outcome making today seem too difficult to breath. I died several years ago in my mind. I’m trying to teach myself that my body can only successfully breath today. Not back in time or forward in time.

It snowed today. I love late April snow. It’s so confusing to people. They freak out on the roads as if it’s our first snow of winter with inches and days of it to come. This is just a reminder that nature is in charge. People see this and cover plants. I’ve been asked if people should cover trees. Cover daffodils emerged. They just have to intervene and protect somehow. All will be ok i remind them. Enjoy the look of the confusion of Mother Nature. She is also coping right now. A little snow in spring is a simple reminder to let go .

I love the look of spring popping up though the remnants of winter. It’s encouraging to know that the daffodils will be ok. That a little snow won’t hurt. That’s how it works. It snowed April 15, the not tax day because that had been extended due to a global pandemic, and I’m still alive. I didn’t die years ago. I just assumed I would have and it’s trying to wreck my current spring snow day. April 15. My daughter has announced its time for me to get pants on and go clean the snow off the car. Snow makes her gag. Literally Who is she? Laugh. Literally. Time to get to today. April 15.