What’s to come

I am about to embark on a journey that is like none I have ever planned….

To be continued….

I imagine I will cry each time I am somewhere that I was last with my dad and now back to that he his now gone. As I drove through the mountains I cried. Just let them fall all the way into my lap. They made small puddles on my legs. I didn’t wipe them or stop them. I once was told maybe I would handle this better if I had a closer relationship with God. That I should just gather myself up and join a church. Let someone talk to me about God and believe what they believe. Would this help?

My brother in law is starting to get better. He had been fighting coronavirus since June 19. They sounded like they were about to give up. To quit fighting for him. Then he started to show improvements. On his own. Was it really anyone fighting for him? Maybe just with him?

How can you leave the mountains once here? How do you get so lucky to wake up and see the mountains every day? Is it luck? The way the air comes right out of the middle of them? The way the sun hits them and they look like little pockets of sun. Like the mountains are being kissed by the sun. Just some places. Kissed by who?

I don’t think a relationship with a God would make me have any less or more feelings about the loss of my father. If anything it could confuse it more. Couldn’t I just have a relationship with myself and believe what I want when I want to help me through when I need it? Yes. I get to decide what to believe and when. I like to imagine he is there. In the clouds. Or in the mist off the mountains, in the sunshine that hits the plants a certain way, in the ripples of the river. Around the backside of the logs with the fungus growing in it. In the steps I take. In the tears I cry. In the breaths I still take. He is there. He. My dad not a specific God. He can be everywhere right? He can be where ever I want him to be since he is not here anymore. He can be with me through everything since he can’t be with me. Right? Right. Because he is part of me and I am part of him. I am where I am because of him. So I can take him with me where ever I want and how ever I want.

The last time I was here in the mountains was with my dad. Anywhere I am somewhere that it was the last time with him will be hard. Not just hard but memorable. Not just memorable but sad. Not just sad but, but what? I’m out of words. I am not sure what words are left. Anywhere I go he isn’t anymore but I pretend he is is pretend. It’s not real. It’s made up. It’s imaginary so I can be ok with him not really being here. I am making things up so I can go places and live my life with out him here.

I came here, here to the mountains and the rivers to work through grief and it is working through me instead. Washing way over me. Like I wanted it to. Is that what is supposed to happen? That I will feel like I have no control. That grief will work through me instead. That it will consume me and I won’t know what to expect and how to manage or deal with it. That it will take me over and wash over me. I don’t get to decide right? It comes in big tall uncontrollable waves that will take me over and try to drown me. Right? Then I have to fight to surface again? How many times? Will each time get harder or easier?

So this entire trip has not been for not. It has been a little eye opening. Walking a little, not walking a little, resting when I say so or when I need to, finding some quiet, finding bugs, looking at trees, looking at the mountains, listening for birds, looking for my dad. Everywhere. He was everywhere. Because that’s what I want him to be. Behind every tree and in every corner. I wanted that when he was alive and I still want the same thing. That’s my belief. For today. To get through today because today the wave is winning.

I did not find what I was looking for. I went looking for the Ellicott Rock initials. Major Ellicott put them on a rock in 1811 to settle a dispute over boundary lines for the Carolinas? He found a rock or a place them initialed it. How do you even get into a place you are asked to settle this kind of dispute? How do you get into a dispute like this? Obviously our boundaries are laid out and we don’t dispute them anymore. Anyway It was nowhere. The initials. That’s what I needed to see. I never found them so they don’t feel real to me. I need to go back. And find them. I need to know if this is true not just believe it.

I froze in panic in a wave. For a second in my mind it took me over. I just literally sat and froze. I left thinking in my mind that grief was going to drown me then the opportunity presented itself and I froze. I forgot for a second to save myself. I could have just went right over. And let it win. Did I want it to? Did I want to be with my dad that much? Find him this much? I have a lot to live for. Almost too much. No way was I thinking this. In that second I was thinking. I don’t know how to save myself right now. I’m too sad. Who will save me?

I miss my kids. It has just been 4 days. I almost never go this long away from them. I love that they need me because then I’m needed. I need them. I know they are fine and they likely know I am fine. But this morning I woke just so sad as the mountains of this beautiful place wake up. As I wake up with them looking for things that aren’t real in amongst their fogs and little pockets of sunshine. Looking for my reason to wake up. They just do. Mountains sleep then they wake. Without a doubt. Without a reason. What’s mine now?

He is here. He just is. It’s the saddest I have felt since he died because I specifically took myself to a place I knew would do it. Because I knew I would feel him here with me. So of course I am crying. I wanted to. I want to and still want to. I want no one to stop me including myself. So when I look up and out and over and under I can go. Oh, he is right here. Not right where I left him but just right where he is. Where he will always be since he is nowhere really specific anymore.

So I took myself to a place to say goodbye. Like really goodbye. He is dead. That’s also ok. I don’t have to have a specific belief or be told to believe something to know the things I know. He isn’t really “here”. He isn’t in those ripples and little pockets of sunshine. It is my imagination. It’s soothing to think. But it’s not true. If it were true I would go looking for him in those pockets. I would save him from being under the water. Like I need to be saved too. I would tell him I need him here to help me still. I would tell him to get out from under the water and get back on land and help me save myself again. Get back to life. But I can’t. Here is what I can do.

Keep living. There is more to come. The things that took me to this place are all because of him. I am here looking at the river because he taught me to love the rivers. The land and to take care of myself. So when he was gone I could take myself to the rivers and places he taught me to love. He isn’t there. He isn’t with me. He is part of me. Forever.

I bundled up flowers. Picked from the road . One from me and my sisters and my mom. Also the same amount as my kids. Then tied them with a piece of plant and let them float away. Then cried. And let the tears go with them. To where things go in rivers. All over places. To deep water somewhere. Where grief is stored. That’s why deep water is so dark it is full of grief. There goes my imagination again….Someone might see the flowers. Maybe down river somewhere they will be standing there fishing. Fly fishing. Like my dad unsuccessfully did and they will see them float by. They will look thinking it is trash. But it’s not. They will know it’s special and from someone to someone else. Then let them keep going. Forever. There is always more to come he will think maybe? He will think of his own loss, cry his own tears which will join mine to their journey of the deep dark waters where we both keep grief. Once my imagination starts it can’t stop.

So my journey like never before was to look for a faith I was told was missing. That I would cope better if I had something specific or special to believe in. I do. I believe in myself. I believe the universe has this. That I don’t. That something bigger exists and that’s all I can do. Let it exist. Not question it. Let it go. Into the river with bundles of flowers for my dad. To float away and wash over rocks and shores and to the places where there is more to come.

I don’t know how an eyeball can hurt. But it can. I fell. Like face planted fell to my eye. Hiking on like the flattest driest and least likely place to fall. My legs were still shaking from a rafting trip I took where I seems to doubt I wanted to live for a second and I could barely hold myself up. I had a falls to see. The company hiking with me was on a mission and I wanted to keep up something fierce. I wanted to keep living. But gravity stopped me in my tracks to my face. Now my eyeball hurts. That’s life. There is more to come. I fall again. Down on my backside. But we see the falls.

I thought I would write about my specific journey. How different it was from my others when I started my opening sentence then left it for a few days. I do this sometimes. Write a sentence then let it go until I sort it out. Sometimes I never finish. Sometimes I can never stop.

So what’s to come came and went. It went into the river. I came to an understanding with myself that is enough for myself. What’s to come will come again and I will go again and embark on the journey needed to help things come and go again. That’s what to come. Life. Love. Loss. That’s what’s to come.