The other side

Have you talked to my dad? Seriously, when you were in that place that is in between here and not here. Did he tell you it’s not time. To come back to here. To our side no the other side. Is this possible? Did he tell you that you don’t get to fight as hard as you did to live this long to go now? From a virus. Did he tell you your new lungs have really just begun. This is a test for them. I hope you chatted and said goodbye, I’ll see you someday but not soon. I have to go back to my side not the other side.

I want to believe there is this place after we go from this place that is a place to go. The other side. I don’t want to go to nowhere and more importantly I don’t want everyone else to be nowhere. I want my dad to be somewhere else and just not here. Not just not here. I want this so bad today my chest feels heavy and full and I feel like I’m choking on a large cry. A cry I’ve been holding in too long. Oh, I’ve cried. My dad died, I cry all the time I feel. But I stop. I wipe them off and stop. Move on. I have to. What is the appropriate amount of time to cry? Sometimes I cry and tears don’t come out. Why? I am not drinking enough water? Is that how it works? Can I be all cried out? Sometimes they leak from one side. Only one half of me is sad? It’s usually the left? Do I have a tear duct issue? I should ask my doctor to check my tear duct. Maybe I should massage them like I had to with my babies. I might have a clogged tear duct as an adult. Full of dirt and dust. Or just not as sad as the other side?

I woke with end of life anxiety. Life ends and nothing else begins? Which is not true. Babies are born all the time. But they aren’t a baby of my dad. They are other people’s babies. People die and more people are born not the same people. There are too many questions involved with death to even think about. Do we lay there dying and decide we are done fighting? We lay there and just go. Let go. Quit living. Why? What’s better? What’s coming next? Is it better than the pain? Is it better than the love? Is it worth it? Why leave so many for something that is nothing?

I have to talk myself out of the end of life questions. I’m not curious and wanting to go I am upset I lost someone and don’t know where they are. I don’t want to join them. I just want someone to say. Here he is. And I will look and see it. Because I can’t feel it. People say, look there he is when pointing to a sunset. What? I see sunset. I can’t see past it. I can’t feel past it. I want to but I’m stuck somewhere between a hère and there too. My own side. I don’t know another side. My faith is stuck somewhere. Probably on the other side.

My brother in law is fighting coronavirus. It feels like he is winning. Or that the doctors are winning. Or who is winning and who are they fighting against? He will have a harder life when he survives this. But it will be made worth living. There are lessons to be learned and things to know from this man. He will show people things they didn’t know could be true. That’s what he has always done. That’s why my sister is with him. She believes. She is my dads daughter and has his faith. She knows this other side because she can feel it somehow and I can’t. We have the same father and share different beliefs? She is close to our father in a way I am not and I am in a way she is not. It’s how it works. My sister and her husbands love is so strong that it’s something I can’t understand. It’s not for me to. Just to watch. And learn. And believe.

Next to my father and my daughter, my brother in law, I should just call him my brother. I never had one and always wanted one and then I got one and now the other side wants one too. But I’m not done having him on my side. My brother is the strongest person I’ve ever known. And that’s a tough list to be on. He is a double lung recipient and now battling a virus that destroys lungs. And the virus isn’t winning? Or someone isn’t?Or something? Or they still could?

My extra anxious is being fueled by extra anxious making me well, extra extra anxious. I can tell I am when I use the same words over and over. I can tell I am when my eyes can’t stay on something. Like I can’t look at something for more than a few seconds. I can tell when I have more questions than answers and the questions don’t even have answers. I can tell when I type so fast that I’m trying to keep up with the string of thoughts running out of my mind through my arms and out of my hands. I can tell when I am doubting myself. When I accidentally plop my worth and value in other people and let them determine what I am worth to me. Like they say 2+2=nothing. You are worth nothing. Not 4. Just 0. I can tell when I wish I could stop the thoughts but then who will I be?

I am breathing more shallow. A deep breath is a yawn. Because I’m tired and exhausted from all the questions and activity the nights bring. I slept last night. So hard that I woke panicked I was dead. I slept and dreamt something and it was vague. I woke with vague memories of being in my bed for hours. I’m not used to not knowing things at the night. I can account for my where abouts all night long. If asked where I was at 1:00 a.m. I can with out a doubt say. Home. Not sleeping. Last night I don’t know where I was. Because I slept. I would be a terrible witness to crimes last night. I was asleep. Nice story? Were you really? Do you remember being asleep? Can you for sure say where you were? The detective would say. I worked myself up all week so much that my body finally won. My mind gave in. It’s so rare a treat I can’t accept it when I wake. I would tell the detective I know I slept because I feel sleepy. I feel like I slept. He would doubt me in squinty eyes and sit back and cross his arms. I would do the same back and stare him down daring him to doubt my night of rest. I don’t know what happened last night in the world. I was resting for once.

So I woke wanting to know if people talk to the dead when they are somewhere between life and death. And I want to know and I want my brother in law to wake up and say so, to say, yes, I saw him, he’s good and happy and wants you to be happy too. To look for him in places you feel something specific. It will come when you least expect it. Like in a shimmer in the creek or in a song of a bird. It will come. We talked. He is there. You don’t know where and that’s ok. It feels not ok still. Cry as long as you want or don’t want. Also, he said to get back to my side and keep living for my other daughter. It’s just not time to be here on the other side.

Thats all I want to hear so I can see it then feel it. Then believe it. Maybe I just told myself?