Touted: attempt to sell (something), typically by pestering people in an aggressive or bold manner. This word just keeps being used right now. I just keep seeing it in stories of aggressive people.

I tried to view my dads story online. I was given a warning that it wasn’t secure, that it may be someone trying to steal my financial information. I need to see if he is on there yet but someone might take my money? I clicked on the story about the risks and it heightened my fear. It says that if I understand these risks I could proceed forward. No, I do not understand these risks and now can’t move forward. I’m now stuck in grief.

I’m supposed to be looking for the opportunity for growth but am stuck on several other steps before that one. I was there a day ago and now I’m back worried about moving forward. Why would someone keep me from being able to view this? To keep me from moving forward? Why do we have these kinds of risks? The kind that seem made up because it’s as if they don’t exist because I can’t see them. Who would put this type of risk on a funeral parlor? Weak people? Taking advantage of people full of strength grieving? Why isn’t it secure today? It was yesterday? Is it because I paid my bills online and now someone has that information? Was it me? Did I make this risk unknowingly? Does the funeral home know? Did they get cyber attacked? We’re they woke in the middle of the night notified of a risk? Should I tell them? I need to be able to see his story so I can go back to going ahead.

I woke feeling nothing. I felt nothing at all. Very tangly. In fact I wasn’t certain I could feel my knees even. Would they hold me up if I couldn’t? I’m either feeling everything or nothing and I can’t get them in order because there is no order to be had or there is too much to achieve?

I need to keep writing to keep track of my process so that if I ever need it again I can come back and see that I got through it. I can’t go anywhere. With the new rules I’m allowed to be in closed in spaces. I might as well be in a casket myself. Even though I don’t ever want to be buried in a box. I can’t go out and meander the woods. I can’t set my tent up and watch the sky. I can’t walk for miles. I can’t sit on warm rocks. I can’t go out and listen to the birds. We aren’t supposed to be out we are too dangerous to each other.

I see pictures of animals playing, of clearer water, or less things disturbed, it’s like our views have been repainted in some places. And I don’t believe it because I can’t be there to see it. It’s not enough for me to see over the lines of connected lines. Skylines are clearer. But I can’t see them. They are inside of something I don’t trust. They are in a place I don’t go to because they do not feel real. They are stuck behind screens. Those are my animals. Like they are my people. Behind there. People say they have their people. Mine are not people.

People can’t access their people in real life. They weren’t anyway. This isn’t harder for them. It’s the exact same thing as before except they are being told to do it this way. This is not the exact same thing for me. I wasn’t connected to others and don’t miss it. Now I’m being told to, or encouraged to. I can’t do what I do. I know I’m not alone. There are many of us who can’t reach out and touch the water, or feel the rocks warmth, or dip our toes in the sand after walking miles. I miss my dad. Not everyone I wasn’t connected to.

I sat in a room and they were all there. But not. All connected to places far far from this room. I sit, alone surrounded by others. It’s the most lonely I’ve ever felt. The most tangled I’ve ever been. I got up to look for him. He wasn’t there. It took me seconds to realize he isn’t there. He would have been the one sitting there with me right there. Not miles away with others. We didn’t say anything always. We didn’t need to. It was just genuine company. His cat stretched across his legs. Just sitting there right in the minute in real life. My in real life is completely gone.

I want my kids to know that feeling of real life. To feel it. Not ignore it. Not look for other feelings to replace the one that comes from not being with someone. That missing someone is the ultimate love. You go days without hearing them, seeing them, hugging them. You imagine it. You hold onto the last time when you need to. Then when you see them again it’s ten times better than the last time. Each time gets stronger. You are more connected simply because you are less. I will replay my times over and over not to torture myself with the memories but to remind myself of them. So they comfort me in the absence of the real ones. They will never be real again. And this is not something I’m strong at. I’m a weak tangly griever. I’m going back.

It’s ok to miss someone. It’s ok not to be so connected that you can pick up anything that has power and touch it and there they are. On the other side of nowhere. Like my dad. He isn’t there anymore. It’s no different to me than if he were still here and I couldn’t sit next to him and talk not at all. People aren’t real to me unless they are real to me. Right there.

I feel disjointed now. That I’m too everything or nothing, that my connections now wonky. I’m tangly and trying to be untangly so I can be connected in a untangled way I don’t connect. It’s being pulled and tugged at by things plugged in. I’m being pulled to chat and see faces that aren’t real. To have meetings just because others have meetings. I should for them? They need this? Or are they also feeling the same pressure. That it’s what we do. Except it’s not what I do.

I need real life formats to feel connection. Otherwise for me it’s a lost connection. They have taken this simple pleasure right from me to protect others from me. And me from them. I’m not plugged in. Writing on a tablet in this format is even difficult. I was getting frustrated with my hand writing because I had too many notebooks and couldn’t always find the one I was last in. Or I would and my daughter had colored faces in it. Or I would spill noodles on it. I needed to be able to write faster for awhile in hopes it would untangle me quicker. I’m in a hurry to be untangled so I can hurry and feel connected in a more untangled manner. Or Im more tangled than ever because I’m being told in need to be connected with cords. Tethered to a world I don’t tether to. I have to be unplugged to be plugged in. Even tangled up. I’m just tangly. I prefer a tangled up real connection.

I can’t do my taxes. I should be able to but I can’t. I do all the things required and fill all the blanks required so the intent is there I just don’t follow through with enough of them to actually do them or I do too many of them. I’m on my fourth? Third? year of attempting. I’m not even sure why we do them. Wouldn’t it be easier to not take the money then to take it and make me fill out papers to get it back. Is it a saving account for the government? Or for me? If I had to pay I wouldn’t think this? Why do some? Why does my having kids give me so many credits? Isn’t that a motivation to procreate? We have a lot of people. A good economics class I was in once would have explained these thing, had I listened. Maybe that’s all they should do. Have a tax class? Maybe I had one?

Year one. I am a few hours from the deadline to do them and ask my neighbor to help. It should be easy he says. You just have the one job, no deductions. Piece of cake. I submitted at 11:50 the night before the deadline. I was in a haze still from medications so for all I know I entered a pageant. They were accepted and I was given a refund. I was not in a pageant.

Year two. I try myself. It can’t be hard. It looked easy. I did them online. I submitted them and they again were accepted. I waited and waited and waited. I finally checked the status and it just said in processing. Then I called. Have you ever called the tax place? I was on hold for so long my phone went dead the first time. The second time I watered an entire house of plants before I was connected. To the wrong department. I would need the audit review department. Audit? I’m being audited? I have to prove not just who I am but that I gave birth to my kids. I did my taxes to early in the year and it was flagged that I might be an imposter. I also entered the wrong income in. From the looks of the number, I made it up. The only thing I could come up with was I was told I could do my taxes off of my last paystub. So I did this instead of waiting maybe 15 days for the proper form. I left two places blank in regards to my kids. I checked that one lived with me the entire year and left the other two blank but listed them. I somehow checked I was a college student. I wanted to be but I was not. To them I was trying to claim a credit I didn’t deserve.

The layout of a tax form is just weird to me. You have to follow lines and numbers with sub numbers and sub letters and move across and over but slightly down but not as far to the left as the last question. Then skip to here but go back up to there. Sign here and check this but not that. It is like a connect the dot to me. I suggested several times on my various calls to make the forms easier. Easier then a form that says EZ. It should be more like a math problem. This is what you made and then we took this and this we took comes back. In my mind it should be three lines long. I shouldn’t have to prove I have kids except that since the form has the boxes to say so if they are left unattended then you could be claiming you gave birth to someone else’s kids. And, this happens. I could send them a picture? Of the birth? No they would need school records, day care records, my daughters IEP, the actual W2. I wondered if it would be easier to drive them to meet the tax people.

I wrote them a really long letter to explain all my errors. On yellow legal pad paper. How I was trying. Trying to get out on my own. Trying to be fiscally responsible. Trying to be a good taxer. But I am tired, I’m struggling with your forms, I should hire someone but I want to prove I can do this. To myself not just you. I am not even sure who this letter went to but it’s in my file which I’m sure is thick. They may have even assigned an entire room and one single person to annually check on me.

Once the audit was complete they determined that I exist and so do my kids but I’m not good at following directions. Which I didn’t really need a tax audit to know, I could have had them just ask my first grade teacher. From the year before. They found an error the year before. That year before when I didn’t do a pageant, but just did my taxes wrong. I missed entering a retirement payout. I just didn’t know I had to and didn’t know the question was there and never got the form to say so from a year of moving too many times to get to somewhere else. It was lost in the mail. Because for awhile I had no place to be mailed.

I didn’t have to do a corrected form they did it for me. Not a courtesy but required rules. Tax rules. Then they denied my credits for the current year so I was actually given no return at all and now owed thousands of dollars from the previous year. I learned if you have certain credits you have to wait to file until a certain date so the tax people know you are really you and deserve the credits. It’s to reduce fraud. The new rules have caught thousands and millions of dollars of people trying to be other people. Good rule. You also can’t use your pay stub. You use your forms required. You also claim any retirements. You also don’t get to say you are in college if you just wish you could go back and become a forest entomologist. Its not the same as going. Just dreaming isn’t doing. In the midst of all of that the government shut down for awhile delaying all my answers forcing me to wait.

Then the next year year three, I figured it would be a fresh start. I would do it right. Enter and follow rules like a good tax preparer. I knew a lot of the rules by now after not knowing them. I did it by hand. Mailed it in properly so they would see I was serious. This method takes longer but I wondered if the backlight on a screen was throwing me off. I can’t read books on a screen. Maybe I can’t do taxes on one too. I like and prefer paper.

I had to do an additional form to show I deserved credit for having my kids. They penalized me the year previous for not claiming the payout from the previous two years before. I had to wait a year. I would get no notice or be able to check online for this tax years news. They finally mailed me a letter. It said they approved my credits. I was so proud!

Then eventually they mailed my return. Which was none. They used it to pay my thousands of dollars. Which I expected and hoped I had done enough right things to achieve that. I was looking for a clean slate. I just owed a small amount. Which shouldn’t be right? It should have payed the entire debt. I look back through my papers. I find nothing wrong. I think. Then I go weeks and get my state refund but I don’t get one they say that one of the social security numbers for a child doesn’t match their records. I check them all. I looked multiple times before I found that I was off by one number on my daughter. The last single number. Just written out wrong. I would have to file an amended return. This means it is also wrong on federal. This is also why my debt wasn’t resolved. They didn’t recognize a child I had sent all the school records and her IEP about because her unique citizen code was not correct. They can’t assume or use process of elimination. They need accurate enters and numbers to produce accurate numbers or the entire system likely fails. We can’t pay taxes based on assumptions. Taxes are a certainty like death.

I’m not like a corporate attorney or Martha Stewart. Who I love.I should be able to do this. I worried they would lock me up. Or force an economics class on me. I don’t know which would be worse? Do you go to jail for just not being good at it? Are they a little exhausted reading each year I suck. That I can’t seem to get it together. Do they look back and see I was once with another citizen who could do this for me. Why didn’t she just stay with him? Let him handle things. Because he handled too many things. So many that I can’t handle my things. People should be allowed to at minimum try to handle things.

The mistake is still being resolved. I sent the amended return and moved into an entire new tax year. Then received a letter again from state saying someone else was trying to claim my kids. I knew the someone else. He used to do taxes for me. The federal people picked it up. Thanks to my previous audit they saw that in fact I was the one to earn the rights to these people. Except the one I entered wrong. Sad face. That will work itself out. The state lady I called was so wonderful. I barely had to wait. I had no options to connect to her she was connectable in just the numbers only given. She told me it’s common for separated people to claim kids they didn’t have living with them. She needed proof they had lived with me that year. She couldn’t go off of the federal audit she was told. Again, they can’t assume to pay taxes. They had to do their job making sure I did mine. It was sent in and resolved.

Now I’m into this year. Year four. So four years. I was going to hire someone but am so determined to get it right. I sat one day quietly and did them from my device. I took deep breaths and had no distractions. I felt proud when it was accepted. Then I waited. Then my dad died. I want to help pay for his last trip to Chicago. I checked the status. It said. We sent you a check but it was not deliverable and it came back to us. Call this number and tell them the correct address. I checked, I saw that my address was correct. I called. They are not open due to the virus and I’m directed online. Online directs me back to an office closed. I try the help line at the tax place I did my taxes at. We chat online and they say to contact the closed number or look online. Then I try calling them and they are also closed.

I google. Google says to do a better job knowing where you live. I look again on my forms. It looks right. I know my address. I’m currently helping my daughter daily write it. Have I written it so much I don’t know it? It’s become too familiar and yet also not? I look through my papers and look for the printed return. Again, backlight on screens makes numbers and letters too bright. I find it. I put apartment IG instead of 1G. See how close they look? I entered a capital I instead of a number 1. Online they look the same to me. They still do right now and I’m not sure I’m not wrong or right. The printed one is clear as day wrong. I file an amended return and use the little space provided to explain in detail my error. I’m pretty much saying I moved from this apartment that never existed to the one I actually live in. Now I wait. I do wait well. I just don’t do taxes well. I will always have next year to really get it right. Maybe I could go to college to be a tax preparer. Then I could actually claim I went to college? Learn all the tax rules.

I haven’t been through proper loss since I last went through proper loss. Only to discover I’ve never really known how to get through loss properly.

I was just newly settled into a normal. I was recovering from an emotionally damaging marriage. And before that I was a teenager. I was accepting the anxious parts of me. I was off medications for over 3 years after being on for not even long enough to know if they would help yet long enough to know they wouldn’t help.

My sister told me you aren’t supposed to start a new paragraph with the letter I. To state you as the I. I can’t always figure out how to not and if to care. Proper forming of sentences and paragraphes are sensible rules and desires for serious writers who strive to write for those of us who may criticize their sentence structure. I love to find the one editing error. Sometimes there are two. You are not looking for them, you are reading fluidly and suddenly it’s not fluid. Because it has too many r’s. Making you question the word intended. I’m an editing nightmare. I am also not a writer.

I’m mad today I can’t use remotes.

I feel like I’m being stung by a bee every few minutes. Am I handling it well or not handling it well? If I’m crying when my eyes sting of the memory of him being gone. Or that Im laying down still and it’s noon. I’ve eaten and fed people who also need to eat. But I’ve been binge watching Gilmore girls. Because I don’t know what to binge watch. I don’t know whats trending. This is a little rotting for the brain I think. Not just the choice but the choice in its self to just keep watching episodes of mindless yammer. To watch the shit out of shit.

I wrote about my dad dying the morning he died. Did I know it was coming? Or was I somehow just preparing for the worst so the shock wasn’t so shocking when it happened. Did writing about it make me edgy because I knew it was coming or was I edgy because I wrote about it? I’ll never know.

I need my routine back. I didn’t really have one totally during this pandemic anyway but I need to create one. They give you days off for loss. An allowed amount of time off to feel the feeling of being deprived of something. They say not to make big decisions during a time of loss. Since he died I have formulated a plan and even reached out to a family to be a living donor. I have also determined their aren’t enough people who offer the simple task of tilling a veggie garden. So I should.

I am not going to give part of an organ at this time. It’s reckless. The decisions would be made for the wrong reasons. I have none is the reason. Or I have too many. If asked I would say, to give the gift of life. Like the website said. Yet that’s not actually my gift to give. It’s not my decision, it’s not in my hands. You can take all my organs I can do without and give them to people dying and they could and will still die. My dad did. I am certain the organ donor askers would see right through me. They would say “I know your grieving and your own loss seems insurmountable but you need to take care of yourself right now, yes she is going to die without this gift. But are you making this decision for the right reasons?”

“No, I’m making it because I don’t know what others to make right now.” she would be sympathetic. Offer her condolences like people do and tell me to care for myself right now. Maybe hand me a pamphlet on how to grieve without giving up your vital organs. I will try to argue through tears. Then leave.

I need my routine back but my routine is that my dad is not dead. Step 3. In my grief pamphlet says to go through the pain, face it head on, get through it step 6. Says I can cry if I want to. If I’m in the store and cry I can tell someone it’s the normal process of grief, or I can tell them nothing. See, I would point, step 6. Step 12. This is an opportunity for growth. Direct my thoughts forward. Are all the other steps in between these necessary? Do I have to do them like a program? They are just little reminders in the format of a checklist. Why would they put them in this format. It makes it feel like you have steps. It makes me feel like I have to hurry.

Should I find support? Do I ever feel supported? Other than with a great bra. I’ve sat in support groups and couldn’t figure out my role or why or how I fit, down to am I doing it right? Am I feeling supported right? I adjust my bra. Should I feel a physical support from this support? Is it like being held up? Or down? That feels like pressure.

I burst into tears that I’m not tagged in posts. I’m not in stories of my dad who is being written about by others who also miss him. Do they look to see if they can tag me. I’m not taggable. I don’t get to look for notifications of people thinking of me. I’m not forwarded into the world for others to know of. I’m not emailed. I’m not part of these big things that so many are. I can’t sort this one out. I do not want to be these things. Yet I am upset I am not. It’s like hide and seek. I hide so good I get angry no one finds me. Left in trees or under cars for hours. How long do you wait? Why does it take them so long to find you? Did they forget? Have to go home for dinner? Should I keep hiding? My dad would always find me in the end. Are you going to come down from that tree soon? Are you coming home soon? When will you be back? He knew where to look. Who looks for me now? Or do I just quit hiding? It’s my favorite game. Maybe a good game of tag? With who?

I don’t want support from others. It says in one pamphlet that strength lies in numbers. That their will be people who understand this. Understand my loss? Or my dad? If I don’t understand yet how can someone else? What study came up with this information? Or is it a guess? Written by someone who finds strength in numbers? I have the wrong pamphlets? I took them all.

Where is the pamphlet to suggest I look within myself, listen to myself, find the strength in myself. Where is that study? No one signs up? People who don’t need supported don’t sign up for group studies? Where is the pamphlet for dealing with grief during a time when the world is so connected no one can get through there process without others being part of it? Too long to put on a pamphlet?

I’m not upset I’m not part of these big things. When I step back I’m upset I can’t find the ones who aren’t upset about these things? I can’t find people who are like me. I quit looking and they don’t appear. They were supposed to appear. I was supposed to get comfortable with who I am and then attract people who will accept me. Where are they? Why does it even matter? I don’t miss being tagged in photos, I wasn’t any way. That’s sort of what bothered me. I tried to force my way into groups to be part of groups. But I didn’t fit. And it doesn’t matter. I’m even mad Im wasting time having to work through this, again. My doubt is with myself not anyone else.

I am part of so much more. I wonder the world with a carefree manner. Not quite the world, not physically anyway, but in my mind I am traveling the world always. I daydream of it. I wonder the land like I am part of it. I’m a tree, I hold my arms out and pretend in a big open field. I’m a bird, and spread my arms as I walk to feel the wind. Do the birds love to fly? That feeling of the wind beneath their wings? Do they sweat? Does it cool them? I bury my feet in earth. Hot rocks along the shore, damp woodsy soil, dry leaves, sand, water… I dream of the night sky wide awake, travel the planets, and the stars. Can you touch them? If I was there what does a star look like up close? Like a lightning bug? Do you have to squint? I chat with bugs. Just in case they can understand me. I chat with plants. Because rarely does anyone hear me. They listen.

I like to play in the dirt. I still sit and sift dirt through my hands with no intention but to watch it fall sifted into little ant hill looking piles. I love to rip creeping Charlie from the ground. It can cover acres of land and is pretty. It’s the toughest plant I know. It has roots like wildfire. If I could I would sit in a field and just pull creeping Charlie. Its an obnoxious plant. It knows it’s own strength and I admire this. You rip it up and a piece gets left and it makes a field again. You till it up and it makes thousands more. It smells like really strong grass clippings. Like grass clippings and a not so strong onion. I need a tiller. Or to be a farmer. I want to turn the soil. I had a boss once who liked us to till garden beds too early in the year to plant because, “everyone loves tilled earth!!” His enthusiasm was mine. I do love this. I’m not a farmer or even a gardener. I’m a grower. I manipulate plants and natural processes so others can enjoy them and the natural process can occur. I need a plot of land, a tiller, bare feet, a crushed grieving soul, and I will just garden out of my grief. My pamphlet could say, how to garden through your grief. No steps. No numbers. No words. Just the universe a tiller and myself. No pamphlet needed.

“Where will we plant him?” Says my 6 year old.

“I don’t know that he is going to be planted, he isn’t really the being planted type.” I say.

Just a typical chat that lead to an explanation of where he will go. My dad didn’t want to be wasted. Or planted. His life lived with such purpose that he felt maybe he should continue it on. He would be anatomically donated. Given to science. His last wish. Not planted.

When he was a baby he was always sick. Always sick as a child. Always sick as a teenager. Then an adult. Just always coughing and struggling to breath, fighting colds like they were going to kill him.

He wasn’t officially diagnosed with his genetic disease of alpha-1 antitripsene until later in life. He researched himself and found himself a place in Colorado who would finally diagnose him with this. His liver was not making the protein to protect his liver and lung from diseases. He wasn’t a smoker and suffered from COPD. In the end he would require a new liver. He had developed primary liver cancer.

None of our family could donate. A few unrelated family were tested. He was put on a list to wait for a donor.

We met his living donor through my sister at work. She said “I’ve just always wanted to do this.” Who says that? Luckily I suppose not everyone and luckily not everyone needs it said to them. So she gave over half of her liver to him.

That was just a quick sum of an unsummable event.

We had to go to the funeral home to make arrangements. I got there first. Which left me with the uncomfortable task of socializing from a distance with people who’s job is ran off of loss. There business is booming right now? Do funeral homes like “slow days?” Or “busy days?” Or do they have these kinds of days. Like my dad would say, “people are dying to get in there!”

I recognized artificial floral arrangements from where I work. The lady in white kept moving one of them. And straightening pamphlets. I noticed she was counting them. To make sure they had the same amount in each slot? They had perfect rows. Just the right amount of grief pamphlets to make a perfect square. I sort of wondered if there was actually too many and this was switched out often to accommodate all the pamphlets without having to awkwardly display some laying flat on a table. Those would look to be the primary pamphlets to look through. The most difficult grief, or the easiest? Her counting and busy body energy was bothering me. I wanted to scramble them up. Or turn them upside down. Can you handle your grief upside down? Is this a pamphlet too?

My mom was late, she went to the wrong home. She went to where her parents are buried. Was this automatic? She needed her mom and dad right now? I told the suit man, he looked stupefied. Like how could you mess this up? I began to over talk. Over share. Fill the space with reasons she messed up. He loosened his tie. He offered me water. He squirmed. I make people squirm. They don’t know how to exit conversations with me because they don’t have a chance to usually say so and they don’t know what to say to get me to stop. So I just talked for 20 minutes about why my mom was late.

He asked us about 6 questions. All of which we failed at answering. His dads name? Grandpa. Right. No. He has a couple, they sound the same. Lloyd? Lowell? Which order do they go in? Why does he have two names that sound so similar and also so odd said together? He never really clarified his name and later in life he decided to switch. We googled him.

His moms name? Shit. Did she use a capital J in the middle of her name? Was it two words?

Occupation? How much space do you have? Um, not a lot. Ok we will pick one. Which one? Carpenter? No piano tuner? No carpenter? How do you write both without explaining why both are written?

Why were we so bad at this? He continued to ask questions we didn’t answer right. He also didn’t look surprised we couldn’t. He’s done this. He’s read all his own pamphlets to understand we are in the early stage of grief. The one that leaves you shocked, the one that feels final but imaginary still. We can’t answer because we don’t know it’s that we don’t want to know. The brain says “I’m sorry I can’t give you this important information right now, I’m busy keeping it from you.”

He is leaving today April 7th for his last ride to Chicago. We had a very sensitive time constraints to achieve this. He did not pass from the virus so he was taken. It had to happen quickly. They will take him to a medical facility to be used to learn things. He was a medical mystery. His will to live outweighed his bodies fight to try and retire. Until they caught up to each other.

Anatomical donation. It even sounds like something he would want. Big words to describe big things. Not just I have my body to science. Anatomical donation. I almost wish I could be in the programs to know what he would be used for. Maybe they will tell us. Maybe he will help resolve something big. Would he ever know? Will we? Will he even make it up there? I try not to think about what exactly will happen. It’s not easy to think about any avenue of death. He could help save lives. He will.

We won’t have a funeral. We couldn’t even if we could. There are rules about it right now. We didn’t want one anyway. Its exhausting. Funerals are a big group of people who come together to send off a person. That’s not a formal definition. Nor does it need one. I leave exhausted from the people who require to see it to believe it, the ones who can’t handle seeing it, the ones who come to chat, the ones who come and just sit, the ones who sing too loud, cry too much, the ones who leave early. It’s a room full of too many different kinds of reasons they are there.

You never have clothes when it happens. Even dry cleaners are prepared. It’s the one thing you can say for same day service. No one ever has simple black shoes. Do we buy them then get rid of them? I don’t even know if I do? I think the last funeral I went to I was barefoot by the end. Maybe people leave shoes? There feet too heavy to hold them up. It’s an added weight to the one we carry.

We wrote his story. It has over 1500 words. The funeral suit man said there was no limit for their website. I bet he is wrong. I bet he just didn’t know someone could write as much as we did. If we had put it in the paper it would have been thousands of dollars. I can’t find anything I want removed and the more I read what I wrote the more I add. After mine he will likely make word rules. I can’t tell enough about him for people to understand who he was. How do you write that kind of story without it being a couple of books?

I leave with one of each grief pamphlets. I don’t need to have them all but didn’t want to mess up the display. I will no doubt read them all. Try to become an expert griever. I am not curious what is available online about how to deal. A search for this will lead to the answers it will also not provide. It would be a search in all the wrong places to deal. I just need a few simple bullet points laid out and a few sentences to define. Then I can make my own rules. Grieve my own way. That’s what is online anyway. Everyone else’s ways. Not yours.

I told myself I wouldn’t actively seek someone to donate life to. And I didn’t, but my mom was reading a story and switched pages and a story appeared of a local woman who needs a liver. Right now people don’t want to go to medical facilities to donate organs. Or even to go to one to not donate organs. We aren’t even supposed to be going to the store unless it’s essential and she is asking for someone to decide that her desire to live a longer life is essential. Would this be? It is. We are told we don’t get to go out and decide who we unknowingly infect with a disease we unknowingly may have. So can they say you can’t go out to save a life?

Someone once decided to save my dads life while also living her own. The choice is yours.

This is not a recipe for disaster. Or it might be. Depends on the things you are afraid of.

It also won’t be like making cookies. It isn’t a bunch of things that will turn into something delicious and solid. It’s taking what you think and thinking something else. It’s turning your fear into motivation, with caution.

Remember when you were 2? You don’t? Remember when you first touched the hot pan? Maybe that wasn’t 2, but remember when you didn’t know the danger lurking over head, just out of arms reach? You didn’t know it would be hot. You were told. “Don’t touch that!! It’s hot! It will burn you.”It maybe didn’t feel scary. Should you feel afraid of the things you are uncertain of? So you touch it. It’s hot. Now you know. This is the beginning of a lifetime of fears. A lifetime of potential near misses, burns, scrapes, falls, a lot of cautions. Places and things just out of our reach. Places and things that upon first glance are to be feared. Until we can learn to approach them with caution.

Heights. Way up there? Or for some way down there? It’s not the fear of going up it’s the fear of already being up and going down. So we stay away from the edge. We walk carefully. We tie good knots to keep us tied in, we don’t fall. My daughter said it once to me, “I’m not afraid of the monkey bars because I just won’t fall off.” I use this when I look down. And out from edges I’m not going to get close to. Land is always falling into the water into the abyss of the down places. So I stay back. Do I keep from being up? Not if I stay back. I’m just more cautious. Still afraid.

Deep water. It’s deep. You can’t see the bottom. It’s very unknown. More than space even. You can see stars and the moon and a few planets on a clear night. But on a clear night in water you can see the reflection of the stars and the moon and the planets, not the bottom. During the day the water plays with the light and creates untrusting images of depth. So I like to just jump right in. I learned to swim. At the age of 36. Before that, I was too afraid. I liked water but I liked to stay on top of it. Safely. I was too afraid.

Those are two of my bigger fears. The ones that you couldn’t guess specifically because I’m always up, down or under. I wish it was as simple as take one cup of this and a dash of that and mix it. Then place it in the oven for baby and me. But it’s as simple as I change what I’m thinking. I change it just enough I go anyway, do anyway, and somehow live anyway. I have a lot of very strict rules on myself. I know there are a lot in the world, but in the end I’m the one who should be making mine. I did have to learn to swim first. I had to learn to keep me secure at heights in trees, I had to learn to want to look down and out. But I also had to learn the stove was hot. It was hot because even though I was warned I just had to know. Because I couldn’t see myself.

I fear the ocean. It’s too big. I know this means I’ve been teaching myself all these years to get to it. To me it means it needs examined closer. How deep is it? I suppose we should find out. How big? I would fall on love with it. I am certain it would be difficult to bring me up from the down once I am taught how to stay calm enough to breath through gear to go below. I’m not sure it’s possible yet. I struggle to put anything over my mouth, nose and face. It’s a bit suffocating. Right now they want us afraid of our air we breath in and out and at suggesting we wear face coverings. I struggle with this. It panics me. I feel more comfortable with my air going into air and back into my body. Like it should. I struggle with this process as it is, I don’t need an added layer. I’m not there yet.

I am so packed full of fear it’s both a shock I do anything and a shock I do everything. I rode my first roller coaster last year. I was 41. I didn’t go as a child. I went to the park they were in once and saw them. I knew someday I would need to. I missed a chance to go with my high school class as I skipped school one day to just not be in school. I knew the consequences and did it anyway. I didn’t want to go on this trip. I waited until I was ready then payed for a ticket and went. I went with a girl I work with who is so afraid of everything too. We got there and I said “ok, which is the worst?”Or is it the best?. We started with that one. I screamed so hard I thought I would just die of screaming. I held on so tight. What the hell was i holding on for? Holding on won’t secure me. Will it? If this thing goes catapulting into space off its track, holding on will not save me. Nothing will. Each roller coaster I tested letting go. One arm at a time. Then occasionally no arms, then all arms back on, eyes open? Sometimes. I wanted to see though. So I started to watch the cars cruise through the tunnels and turns. It was fascinating. Who inspects these? When and how often? What if the inspector that day had just lost his wife and was so sad. He didn’t count critical welds and bolts as well that day? Who can I ask? The teenager who is running the show? The information desk? After about 10 rides I decided to just go with it. If I was going to die I was going to die screaming of fear which was also no fear.

Once someone asked me “what did I think people would say at my funeral?” I have friends who love chats like this. Isaid. “What the hell was she doing up there?”

I’m not less afraid. I’m more brave. I use the caution to keep me safe. All my rules plus the ones provided to make the leap into the deep end. It makes fear feel more like cautious to me. Not not afraid. Simply because I’ve wired myself to believe this. I’m wirable.

I write about fear today because I feel too afraid to write about fear today. I watered my plants for the first time since he died. The last time I watered he was almost gone. As I’m watering I’m thinking of what to say about my dad. To help write his story. Tears were pouring all over my plants. Soaking them with my sadness. How do you sum up the total of a person so unsummable. He can’t be wrapped up in a simple story. He wasn’t a simple person. It had to be unique. It then felt like it didn’t need to be done anyway. Anyone that knew him knew these things, anyone who didn’t would wish they did. Why do we do this to people? Tempt them with stories of people they could never meet? I don’t want to write about him for others.

So we wrote about him for us. His story told by us as if he wrote it himself. This is what happens if you don’t do it yourself. Write your story or someone else will. My dad wrote it for us to tell. It got less scary as us girls worked out all our nervous energy and cleaned and gardened. Then we sat with our wine and told his story. It was a good one.

When did my 6 year old become smarter than me? Or is she reminding me of what I’ve taught her at a time I can’t look past what I feel. Which is too much.

It feels like everything that isn’t important right now also is the most important thing in the world right now. I just cry randomly. They taste less salty than they did each time. Am I lacking sodium? Is that what it is? Where is this fluid even coming from? I’m mildly dehydrated always. How can I have so many tears? And what is making them fall out? I blink and it makes them come harder. I squeeze my eyes and they pool out. They can’t be contained. I can’t be contained today? I’m way too leaky. I’m leaking my sodium? Do people have to go on saline drips to rehydrate from crying too much?

I’m flooded with tears then they are gone. Like a tide. That’s how grief works? It comes and goes? It ebbs and flows. A recurrent or rhythmical pattern of coming and going or decline and regrowth. I was fine 5 seconds ago and think I will be in a few more but the milliseconds in between Im flooding. Then I’m not.

I’m grieving. That’s what it is. We are always grieving? We have all suffered various degrees of loss. So we all grieve. It just comes and goes. Yesterday I was stuck in it. But yesterday making forts and tents for the turtle with my daughter and ordering pizza and taking 6 baths was what yesterday was. I can feel what I feel. I had to not give in to it, I just welcomed it. Every time I wanted to cry I did. It poses a lot of questions about the mechanics of the eyes and production of tears but nothing I can’t handle right now. They are tears because I am sad. And I want to be. And I don’t care right now why.

One day of not doing first grade math and remote learning isn’t going to keep my girl from becoming a brilliant engineer or even keep her from being not a brilliant engineer. She is a naturally wired thinker. She will be brilliant at anything she does but what’s important is she will see me through a grief process and be able to apply it to her own loss. She will be a brilliant grieving engineer. Not even 5 days of no math is going to harm her little spongy mind. In place of math she is absorbing a significant loss, her sponge is kind of absorbed right now. Mine is. Was? I’m not sure a grown woman still absorbs things like a little growing mind. Mine might actually be depleting.

I woke with a little more purpose today. I had it yesterday but it’s purpose was to just be. Today I have to do. I woke and have digested the thought I need to be a living donor. That I need to give. Be a giver. I googled. I broke a solid rule and googled first thing before my shower, before I was even fully awake and up. So dangerous. If I research before I’m upright it has too much time to sit properly and become a growing thought. I can’t linger in bed. The quicker I catapult into the world the less I have to digest through my shower. Which is where I seem to think in such fragmented thoughts. All broken and shaded from the sleep that I may have had. But I digest them right down the drain. Sometimes It takes me too long to shower so I can rid them all. I wash my hair too many times, can’t always remember if or which legs have been removed of hair. I’ve used skin lotion to wash. I’m a very distracted shower taker.

If I lay there and research then I hop in the shower and formulate a plan to donate part of an organ. Even if it’s not “encouraged”, even if you can’t just register. Even if I know no one who needs one,yet I know many who do. I know some people. That sounds like I’m thinking of a shady black market organ trade. I’m not. I know the people my dad knew. The people waiting for someone who wants to give life in a way that is now medically possible. Give the way someone once did for him.

I need to pay it forward. I know I could just pay for coffee in line but you can’t get coffee in lines right now. Lines are too long with the added math to be in one. Some are just closed. The math too complicated to handle the lines. Plus when I do that, I always end up being in front of the single person who happens to be the person sent to get the office coffee. I’ve paid it forward in the amounts of 50+ dollars before. It’s ridiculous to say you are, then when they say the amount,you back out. I am not complaining so much as I am noticing the amount of times it’s happened. I did it once and had the lady follow me to work and tell me I made her day. Since then I make sure I’m not followed to work anymore. I like the mystery behind it. I’ve been late for work worried someone will know where I work. This is also ridiculous. I want to pay it forward. Not with money. Just help people. Somehow. I’ve helped myself so much I’m almost bored with it.

I need a challenge. Like a good homeless person to tend to. That’s my mom in me. She is a giver. She would have given part of her liver to my dad if she could have. I would have. I also couldn’t. His specific requirements we couldn’t meet because some of us shared them. Our bond so close because of genetics. It was genetically not possible. My mom cares for others. It’s what she does. It’s how her and dad worked. She took care of others which is how she showed love to him, he required so little he demanded she care for others or herself first. He loved her by reminding her to love herself. It was an interesting delicate balance. When he couldn’t she was there. I often struggle being a little bit of both of them. My mom would stop and take in every homeless person and care for them; my dad would stop and lecture them how to care for themselves. I tend to just pretend there are no homeless people because I wouldn’t actually be that helpful. I drive by and hope that it all works out without my interference. I tend to be more like my dad. I don’t want to change everyone’s tires I want everyone to know how to themselves. If I put the thought of donating an organ out there it will swirl around in the univers and be spit out if the opportunity presents itself. I will not actively seek someone to give life to. It will find me if I stay on the path to allow it.

Someone told me to do everything with purpose. Right now it’s more important than anytime in our lives. Make plans to be places few aren’t, make lists, today isn’t a day to linger the store and read labels. Today is a day to chose things that maybe don’t need labels. And get out. It’s not a social call to go to the store. Pinterest your recipes the night before. Not while standing in the produce section. Awaiting a sneeze. Awaiting the virus to attach itself to you while cruising through dangerous places like the produce section. It’s a dangerous world right now. It’s out of control. It’s out of our control.

Remove myself from the equation. My dad reads books. Read books. He is past tense now. I have to change the way I form sentences. I wasn’t good at it anyway. He read algebra and calculus and physics books for fun. Yes for fun. He gave me dictionary’s to look at as a child when in trouble. I didn’t do anything with them but look at them like I was looking at pictures or a book of paintings maybe. I love a good equation. Or math problem. Just the looks of it. It’s so complicated. I don’t have an interest in an answer, in fact if it produces one I would question it one step further. Why? Why does it equal that? I’m a mathematicians nightmare. Or maybe their challenge?

So I’m taking myself out of the equation. Each day will have purpose. Some days it will be not to leave. This will undo. If we follow the rules. If I can’t hike and explore nature right now it’s a small price to pay to help keep a few alive. I won’t stop it single handed but I can help slow it. Maybe. I will never know. But I can do other things. Right now the tide is rushing in on this virus. It’s about to behave like the eye of the hurricane. I can feel it. I think dad left at a good time. If there is even a good time. I would not have been able to get to him if he did get sick from this. Then mom would have. I could have lost them both. Dad saved us. He is saying ride this out girls. Then life will get back to normal. He is saying it’s going to be bad and you need to stay in and stay safe. He is still talking to us. So is the universe. I’ve become a universe listener. Which is really me. I’m my universe. We are one and the same. It’s saying to stay in. I’m not afraid to be out. I’m going to be cautious. I am still afraid just being more cautious. Live with intent and purpose even if it’s just playing dolls for days.

Why a second cup of coffee tastes so different from the first I will never know. They are made from the same things. The first is the taste of waking up, the second tastes like coffee. I rarely even have two, specifically because I don’t know that I like the taste of coffee. It’s the cream and raw sugar. I really prefer a good cup of steamed sweet milk. But that first cup of coffee tastes nothing like coffee.

So I can’t just donate part of an organ in the middle of a pandemic. That’s not purposeful. It’s actually dangerous and I’m guessing the process has slowed during this time. I’m going to garden the shit out of today. My dad has a yard. Oh my god, had, but he still has it. It’s also my moms so the ownership is still theirs even if he is gone. My dad has a garden and it needs tended in his absence. I don’t have a garden to tend. I tend others.

He is being donated. Or we are trying to. Anatomical donation is increasingly difficult during a pandemic as well. This is making the dead hard to move on to their places. They can’t be properly rested right now. Too many lingering souls soon. Dad needs to go. He can’t linger. I also don’t know what I’m even talking about. He is gone. But people believe people aren’t “gone”. I believe he is gone. But I believe he is part of me, because he made me so he isn’t gone because of the life he made. I’m a part of his universe and he was mine so it’s an infinity to me. He is gone but real close all at the same time. I have to get off this train right now.

Every day I will grieve. Everyday will be a grief day. It’s an unbearable loss. But he has shown me how to get through this. It was his purpose. Like mine is to my kids. When the water subsides that’s when we tiptoe into the water again. When it is calm. You don’t play in the dangerous waves right now. The signs say so.

It’s not the questions. It’s the lack of answers. That’s where my angst comes from. It’s the process of questions leading to questions to just more questions. I can make the simplest question turn into a non answer. I’ve been asked yes or no questions that I can’t even answer without asking follow up questions. I’m told “it’s a simple yes or no.” Is it simple? Why does it have to be? Do you like pizza yes or no? From where? Sometimes. Why do you ask? Is there pizza here? Are you ordering pizza? If it has a good sauce, maybe? If I’m hungry enough. Is it homemade? My least favorite question is how are you? Who on earth can answer that? Do you mean in general? Or today? How many does it take to create a feeling of unresolve? Sometimes just one.

Why?

How?

What?

You know them. The w’s and h’s. The ones that are so simple to ask and write yet lead to no possible outcome for me.

Why?

Because it was his time. That’s how it works. You are here and then you are not.

But why?

I woke with my eyes swollen closed from crying. I can’t remember what fruit or even if it is fruit helps this. I believe it’s cucumber. Is cucumber a fruit? I’m a horticulturist I should know this? Yes it is, it has seeds. Why cucumber? Who has a cucumber laying around waiting for puffy eyes? Probably everyone but the ones that need them. Will carrots work? What about pickles? Or it might be tea bags? Do I make the tea first or just put tea bags on them? I don’t want to waste tea bags on my eyeballs. I don’t really like tea. Will coffee work? It could be neither. I did put eye drops in. Which I knew was going to just irritate them further. The bottle claims to cool and comfort the eyes. They feel like I tried to freeze them. Which is a fear of mine. That I will get frozen eyeballs from being in the cold. The eyelids are there to protect but I can’t walk with my eyes closed. I’ve tried. I also love the cold. I also know that my eyeballs won’t freeze.

Did I really think I would wake and it didn’t happen? It wasn’t a dream. I don’t have dreams like that. I have thoughts like that. You have died a million times in my mind over my life. I actually feel a little less, and more. A little burdened with the mémoires of your last big attempt to fill your lungs with air, your last moment when you had really just you to move on. That last moment when we all sat collectively encouraging you to go as if you were running a marathon. Like little cheer leaders. You breathed so big one last time. Like you were taking this last breath with you, in case you needed it. Yet I’m also lighter knowing you don’t hurt. Lighter knowing I don’t have to worry so much anymore. Lighter knowing you took that one big breath that I feel you needed to go. Your chest filled up and then it didn’t come out. I watched. It was 5:17. April 3,2020. I’m overwhelmed with grief? I’ve never gotten to properly grieve for someone on my own like this. I don’t reach out to others, really even with this type of place. I’m reaching way in. Making sure I’m ok with what I’m not ok with. It feels like shutting others out. Because it is. I require a ton of space under normal circumstances so right now I wish I was in space, with cucumbers. Or maybe all fruit just in case. And tea. And coffee so I can have it to drink while I write. But mostly the fruit. Oh, and a space suit and space ship. With trained Astronauts to retrieve me when I need less space in space.

That’s where she thinks you are. In space. That’s where the afterworld seems to be to a 6 year old mind. Or a 42 year old mind. We look up to the “heavens” but are told this great big feeling is all around and within us. Deep within us. Which is why I don’t look anywhere other than right here. I look up to the heavens because I’ve seen it enough to think that’s what we do. To believe you are floating on a cloud. Or to believe you landed on the moon. Or mars. See if the flag is still on the moon? She wants to know.

Dearest virus,

You didn’t get to him. You didn’t even make him afraid you would. He had so many other things to be afraid of besides something everyone wanted him to be. He got to die his own way. You didn’t take him. Even touch him. I am relieved you never touched him. Is it going to be so bad that somehow he knew it was his time, to protect himself, which would be protecting us from your nasty spike-y ball claws from infecting us. The ultimate sacrifice in the end. His way of saying keep safe. I’m good now. It’s ridiculous to think. But it’s also not. Then another side said. Did he go so he didn’t have to see so many suffer? What if it’s one of us? That’s also ridiculous. You don’t scare me either. Even if you do get to me. You also do scare me.

Maybe you are watching down? But for me you are watching from within: You are my inside out.

I’m writing in the future. It’s not the future but I’m in it. That’s how my anxious mind works it’s also how it doesn’t work. It won’t stay in standard regular time. It’s always behind or ahead. When I’m in the moment as they say I’m already preparing for the next or thinking of the last.

You died before your orchid bloomed. It was so close. I got it for you. We kept complaining about it not blooming. Now it’s close.

I’m not the person to keep the calm. I am not the person to keep this all together. Or am I?

Long pause….

I stopped writing this in fear the future was near. It always is, right? It’s what’s to come. I don’t think I can control it. Some say anxiety comes from the feeling of no control. Or wanting it. Or maybe that’s not true? But I think I read it somewhere. Mine may not even be anxiety. Just a few people have told me this is what I am. Anxious. Am I? Are you? Do a lot of questions mean anxious? Right there, I just asked several, I feel no different other than I have more questions. Nothing changed in my breathing or my heart rate. I just have a lot of questions. What is that called? Annoying is what I’m usually told. Am I right? Most times I want no answers. Because there aren’t any. Sometimes I ask and hope not to get a response. Sometimes I can drill a person like a detective/toddler.

I stopped writing when it felt like it was my “in the moment.” To be with you. They bent some rules to let us in. We aren’t in an area that has a lot of cases of the virus so we got to come see you. To say goodbye. To tell you it’s ok to let go. Not to tell you to hang on. To tell you we are all ok and to go.

Were we the ones hanging on? Or you? Can anyone really hang on? Or let go? I always think of really fragile full glasses of water over the Grand Canyon tight rope walking. No not water. No one cares about spilled water over the canyon. Cups of kittens. Its cups of kittens. Then you have to make it to the other side by hanging on? Balancing is what this actually is. Letting go isn’t dropping something. It’s not releasing a physical grip. It’s not forgetting you have cups of kittens. It’s also not falling. It’s just not hanging on. You can balance without hanging on so tight. I know there are books about this “letting go.”I need books about not hanging on. How to loosen the grip. Walk the rope. Keep the kittens safe while not actually hanging on to anything. Because there is nothing. to hang onto. Letting go isn’t forgetting. It’s carrying less weight across that small rope. It’s focusing on the cup of kittens in the moment. Dropping the weight of anything else so you make it safely across the canyon.

Caution: do no attempt said scenario at home. Or at the Grand Canyon. It’s closed.

I looked at that orchid and cursed like a sailor. I’m not sure about cursing on here. It can be a turn off to read bad words and also a turn on. So imagine I was cursing like a sailor and feel it like you wish. This orchid didn’t bloom in time for you to see it. We even joked about it. “Don’t die before this thing blooms! Hahah” I gave it to you the day after the celebration of love day, Feb. 14 for those who don’t know what day demands we love. I gave it to you the next day because we were both busy. I didn’t have time to love on the day the calendar demanded me to. I usually intentionally am preoccupied to show that love should be showed when we feel it. I also am reading to much into a day that so many love. Love is love all the lov’n time. I am intentionally difficult.

I stopped writing so it would not be true. So I maybe could trash it yet I saved it. Knowing it was.

I woke knowing. I knew when I got to work and lost my shit over the grass seed not being full that you were going. I knew when the van in front of me meandered casually as if he had no where to be which he isn’t supposed to be. Then turns into the donut shop I thought was closed with no warning he was turning. I knew when mom called me and didn’t text. I knew yesterday when we chatted about nothing and you looked so good and felt so good. I hope I feel that good the day before too. I knew it weeks ago when I wrote about it but was too afraid to tell you. You already knew? I knew. You also knew.

You are gone? To where? She wants to know. Not me. I know you know which is enough for me. But she doesn’t yet. Don’t worry about her. Which you can’t. Because you are gone. She is right here right now on my chest listening to my heart. The closest she feels to you she says. She wanted the red book. The algebra book from the top shelf you gave her to look at when she got a bit stir crazy. She has your pencil. I will watch it.

I can’t write about mom. Not now. I whispered I would take care of her. You know I will. That’s what this has been all for. I’ve been preparing for you to go. You are tired. Were. How many times will I write are. Like you are current. Except you are always a were now.

We worried this virus would be the death of you. You told me to live. Told me to read, write, take care of my kids and not let it stop me. No one makes you afraid but you.

I was told by someone I wished you had met I’ve got this. Am I somewhere safe? He used the f word. Which I secretly yet publicly now love. He is so much like you. You would have liked him. He seems to like me.

I didn’t know you wrote words you loved. I have your notebook. Now I know where my love of words and a good mechanical pencil is from. Somewhere along the way I learned this.

I will take the boat out. I told you I would and I will. I will tie good knots. I promise.

Can I write through this? Can you know I am? What do I believe? I love that you believed what you did but what do I?

I need a good political debate. Where are you to remind me of the politics that bored me? Who will bore me now?

I’m furious you didn’t have this virus. It also makes me furious I’m furious. I think so many thought you did. I knew you never did and also figured it would be what took you. Although, you don’t know how to do simple. Neither do I. I didn’t wish it upon you. I just figured it would be your time. You have fought to live so hard. Or you fought so hard to live. Your will to live outweighed your will to die. Until it didn’t. Today. Your body won. It said game over. Let me off this world. You wouldn’t want to be here for the rest of this misery we are projected to ensue. Maybe I’m jealous. Not that I’m wanting to die but the next few months will be difficult to want to live for so many. I told myself the other day that I hoped we would laugh about this one day. We would say “remember that time you got really sick but not from the virus sick and they all figured it was the virus.?” Remember?

You went so peacefully. I could see the nurse watching us girls. Not mom. Mom was tethered to you. Like roots of trees tangled. She was tangled. We all are one big root system. She is just imprinted more in yours. We are little off shoes. The nurse seemed like she was Trying to pick one to make the eye contact with, she caught me. She knew I was the one to make the contact with? Even though I looked away. I wasn’t ready. None of us were. The she came back and she nodded to me. But to all of us. Except I looked right at her and not you. I was still holding my own breath. It was done. You were gone. She needed someone to be able to say it to mom. To my sisters. Why me? Because that is me? I can’t stay in the moment long enough to watch yours end? But we all knew. We didn’t need to be told. We will need to be told to breath again.

I will sleep with puffy eyes. I may not even sleep. I can go without or with. I need to be able to be awake if the girls need me. I need to be awake if they don’t. I slept so well last night until something woke me all antsy. Like the night before. I don’t know if I believe it was a sign. That I was waking. I wake to crickets and interstate noise. But I woke to dead silence. For no good reason other than a feeling I was lighter. That I was going to be ok. Was I? Am I? We will see. Says my will. From yours.

Remember that time you died during a global pandemic…I do.

I’m officially connected to the world. Or the access is at the tip of my fingers and an outlet in my wall. I have the internet. It doesn’t work. I’m officially also someone with internet problems. I’ve owned this access for an entire day and can’t get access. It just won’t connect to devices. I have terrible cell service so this seemed an accurate option for all the remote learning my kids can do but probably won’t. It’s also free for now. It also just doesn’t work. I can’t trouble shoot it, it’s not in my realm of trouble shooting. I will disassemble it. I’ve already looked at the router or modem or whatever box it is and it has screws. Screws that hold all the secrets to little electric worlds I need to take apart.

I downloaded an app to help me connect and trouble shoot. It so far hasn’t let me into the app. It needs a password that I don’t know. It needs an authentication. I set one up with the cute technician who came to help me troubleshoot why I couldn’t attach the cord to the wall. Now the device says that is not the correct one. In my settings on my device it doesn’t recognize that I named my modem/router. It’s as if it doesn’t exist yet it sits in the corner blinking that it’s online. Everyone is online including my box, but me. I told my son I just don’t care enough to figure it out. Or I will end up caring too much. I’ve heard horror stories of waiting for technicians to come help. Not quite horror stories like being murdered or assaulted but just stories of waiting. People who sit and wait for access to the world and don’t have access to the world while they wait. They don’t know what to do. Including wait.

My technician came at the half way point of the time slot I chose. He was polite, wore gloves and booties and explained things to me that I clearly wasn’t listening to. He didn’t murder or assault me. I say it was a good service call except…I didn’t listen. I was too concerned with the picture of him on his phone with a light saber. Also too concerned with why he came at the half way point. Too concerned with looking for screws to open the box and see what’s inside. Too concerned that he propped the outside door open with a tool. Too concerned with being concerned about not being concerned with what I needed to know. I was just not concerned with what he was saying about connecting things. I thought I heard but when I applied it later in the day I tried to pull it out and just found the light saber picture in my memory. All my teachers laughing in my head at how I can’t apply myself. Which I can’t. No one explained how or showed me where to apply.

I’m not going to be a good internet owner. I won’t use it. I won’t worry about why it doesn’t connect and won’t care if power goes out and I can’t use it. I’m like a recovering addict who puts a bottle of wine unopened to dare them to open and expose all the shame they once felt. That box is mine. It was a place I took myself so I didn’t have to take myself to my own self. I avoided my damage control needed and concerned myself with others. Looking and picking apart other people to see what was so wrong with me. I just didn’t want to own my story. I wanted to have one like I see online. Perfect.

There is a misconception I own of what is perfect. I now see that what we see is what we see not know. I often felt that if I didn’t let the world know of my adventure then it didn’t happen. What I found is I was letting the wrong people know. What I also found is so much more than what I tried to find looking outside of myself.

So that box sits there tempting me to want to remind myself. To see if I can go and come back. It won’t happen. I have that kind of control now. It can sit there blinking away it’s adventures all it wants to because I can’t get connected anyway.

My daughter wants me to reassure her my dad won’t die. I don’t know how to. He could. So could I. So could she. This isn’t information to assure a small child of a long life. How can I say it so she understands that I’m saying life is precious, life is a gift, it’s a moment, it’s worth every minute?How do I say it so she knows I’m saying live every moment because it might be the last? How do I say that so she doesn’t use that moment worrying it might be the last. How do I say it so I believe it too?

She cried, she misses him so much. She had a big feeling for a big feeling she can’t seem to grasp. I let her cry and held her. She told me I let her cry and it’s ok as long as it’s not crying over something she can’t have, like a toy. I’ve told her to wrap those tears up kind of quickly. She can’t have her papa. She also can’t wrap her tears up quickly. This is an exception I tell her. These kinds of wants are not the same as a toy. She cries harder. Now I’m crying. My thoughts are leaking.

What if he dies? She asks.

Then we remember everything we love about him, we cry sometimes, we laugh, we get angry, we run off and stomp that life is cruel to take him, we pout, we keep him inside our heads and hearts.

How?

With our memories. They stay. Even if we aren’t thinking of them they are there. Even if we don’t remember them they are there.

Do you promise he won’t die?

No.

But I will miss him.

Yes.

I’m holding back my own tears. I don’t want to have big feelings either. I’m still 6 when it comes to my dad. If I don’t know where he is, he died.

I’m hoping they close all parks. I am worried we might unknowingly cause more damage to the places that aren’t used to people coming to places. We will interact with wildlife more than it is used to. Frighten and maybe destroy delicate habitats and systems we don’t know exist or understand. What will happen when this ends? Will it even end? People will want to escape. Like caged animals they will run all over leaving their footprints. They say to only leave footprints. What if it’s just too many?

People walk around with gloves and masks on. In cars. I see them lifting them to drink their coffees they get from McDonald’s. I see them remove gloves to touch screens, I see them afraid to breath our air. Am I not afraid enough? Am I breathing dangerous air or am I giving off dangerous air? If they are that afraid shouldn’t they be staying inside like they want us to? Shouldn’t I? I’m not afraid. I keep trying to be. I can’t do it. I quickly calm myself down. I can’t seem to think I’m about to die from a virus and can’t seem to think I’m single handedly responsible for killing thousands with my air. I don’t think it’s fair to put that kind of pressure on a single human. I don’t want to be someone who thinks we have to many people but I might be someone who thinks we have too many people. I also don’t want any of them gone. I wish we had more space to keep growing. I include myself. I may be one who is eliminated. So could my children. But it could happen in a million different ways. Am I also never going to drive? Or fly? Or boat? Or swim? The immediate imminent danger is usually what we don’t expect. I can wrap myself up on a tyvex suit and get ran over by a school bus delivering food to kids stuck at home. I can’t not live.

I am officially counted as people in the world. I was warned I needed to be properly counted so I finally did it. Will I also be subtracted? Do they do an opposite census? Is that what we are doing now? Counting loss? Right? What about the saying for every so many people that die so many are born? Is it still an even number? Was it ever? Lots of folks cooped up inside so maybe that will come later? A make up census will be needed? I don’t want millions of people to die but I don’t want to feel the pressure that somehow I can save them all. Or the pressure that I am selfish for wanting to continue to breath air.

When I did the census they ask a lot of questions about your race and color. Are we still there? In a world that needs these kinds of boxes. I was shocked it didn’t ask sexual status. It asked male and female. Some don’t like those option. I’m not some, I can accurately identify, but some can not. They feel confusion and isolated when they have no box to check they fit in. I was asked to chose my color. I chose white. It’s as close to the peach/tan like color I am. Then when I hit submit it demands more info about my color. It felt kind of personal. It also didn’t have an option I could chose. I typed in none. It took it. I probably could have written lizard and it would have, now I wish I had written lizard just to see. I’m sure there are some great big great reasons to need to know these things, like will we all fit? On the planet. Should we try to habitate another planet? Will where we all go? Maybe it’s to project out further? To assume a number in 20 years based on the current one, then to be able to see if we guessed right? Maybe it’s to make sure we make enough toilet paper? Or it’s just something to do for people who like to count. Habitate isn’t a word. I want it to be, but it just isn’t. I want the word for habitat that is an action and don’t want to look it up. Maybe I mean populate?

I can’t wrap my thoughts up into a neat and tidy ending, they keep going today. My big feeling keeps going in big leaky thoughts. That’s how I cry for the things I don’t understand. Like my dad dying. I can’t wrap my tears up anymore than my daughter can. I have to think through them. I can’t use the internet and don’t care. I don’t want anyone else to die and am too sad for too many things today. I keep thinking of as many things as I can so I don’t think of the things that I don’t want to think about. So I keep thinking.

I woke with nothing and everything on my mind. Usually I wake with the feelings of 1. Am I still alive? 2. Where did I go for a few hours? 4. I need to untangle things.

That’s apparently 4 things to me. 3 must just be a continuation of my absence of thought for several hours. I have to untangle myself from the claustrophobic type burrito I managed to get into in my blankets. And in my head. It’s the one place I feel claustrophobic. In bed. Even though I know this is in my head. Or sometimes in a tight necked shirt. That may even be a different phobia. It may not even be a real phobia at all. Are any of them real?

I am curious where my mind is going to take me before I start the day. I am just kind of letting it go. Not forcing a topic to obsess about. I’ve blinked more this morning. I have what I believe is all of my eyelashes fallen into one eye. At the rate at which my lashes fall out I can’t figure out how I have any at all. And they fall in my eye. Not near it but in it. I guess I figured eye lashes were created as a protective component of the eye. Something to bat at the wind to keep shit from getting in them. But they can’t seem to protect themselves from them self. Mine aren’t long. I swipe a layer of mascara on them because they tend to have blond highlights to them and I can imagine I look like I have none. Which I may not? I tend to tug at them. To check and see if any are loose. Nothing bothers me more than an eyelash in my eye. Or the feeling of one. Or anything in my eye. Do they grow overnight? Maybe they grow as soon as one falls out. Maybe that’s why they do fall out. I grow eyelashes quicker than most? Where on earth in my eyelid is all this back up lash? I’ve contemplated researching extensively why eyelashes fall out. But I will not google eyelashes.

My cat ended up assaulting me for trying to remove mat from her back. I tried talking calmly but I wasn’t calm. The instructions should say start with a calm human. I knew the attack that was coming. I had to sit on her a little to remove a little layer. I was too afraid to cut close to the skin. I don’t know the layout of organs as well on a long animal like I do humans. I’m not sure it mattered anyway I don’t want to puncture her skin even if it was just spine below. She knocked some things over in protest when I gave up with my own arms bleeding. Then she curled right back up on top my legs last night to help hold me down in sleep. She is my dead weight to help keep me in place. Or she likes to be tossed around all night. I usually wake with her right on my shoulder breathing at me. Then she lightly taps me on the face. I always imagine her trying to steal my breath like that story people told about cats trying to steal a babies breath in their crib. It’s a terrible wives tail. It’s a terrible myth about cats. Or it’s a terrible truth about them. But she always puts her paw right on my mouth and taps it. Maybe she can see me breathing and cats don’t breath with their mouths open and she is curious. Curious like a cat. I forgive her for her temper after the mat removal. But I think she needs her nails trimmed now. Which I will have to google. But I am not googling eyelashes today.

Life feels like it’s just catapulted to a stop. They have made some restrictions to lessen the spread of this virus that keep people inside. My dad still lays in the hospital with this non virus struggling to breath. They have tested him twice. Both negative: could there be two false negatives? If so they should doubt all tests results all over the world. They want it to be this virus because its easy. Not easy but easier than harder. My dad doesn’t know easy. The staff are becoming close minded to other diagnoses. It’s all they can see because it’s all they can hear. He is there to keep them guessing, like good doctors should. Keep them on their toes. Make them believe that not everyone will have this virus and die. He is there to give them hope. He isn’t a simple cut and dry case. He requires some thought. They don’t have to try to keep him alive they just need to keep guessing why he is trying to die. Is he? Is he just tired? He has fought so hard all his life. Who was he fighting? Was he fighting to live or die? Once I was asked if there was anything he couldn’t do? My answer. He doesn’t seem to be able to die. Google won’t know these answers either. Same as eyelashes.

I just have two routines now. 3 days of connecting and staying in with my kids. Teaching them, walking with them, sleeping in a little hiking, baking, reading…anything I want. Except shoe shopping. You can’t shoe shop really now. Or they don’t want you to. I also don’t really need or want to shoe shop. I just sort of do since no one really wants me to. Which is just how I am. I’m told not to and my level of interest in doing heightens. Like that they say no cosmetic or elective surgeries. So my thoughts went to all the cosmetic surgeries I might want, like maybe eyelash implants? Or any sign up surgeries that aren’t necessary. Which I can’t really think of one I would want to do. Maybe having my jaw broken and reset? It’s kind of not necessary I would be electing to do it. And I can’t now. Or a massage. I can’t now. I don’t like to be touched by strangers but am now curious about it, curious like a cat. What about a tattoo? I don’t need one but now I can’t get one. I can go on for days of the things they don’t want you doing that now I want to. Then I have 4 days of as close to my old routine as it can be. Eat, sleep, work. Not that order. Or maybe that order depending when I start. No googling eyelashes or cosmetic surgeries.

Can I trick myself into believing I am just not on my original path right now? Can I create a story in my head that lets me feel like I was forced off my trail and forced to wonder through the woods off of one? I was forced. The rules said get off. My problem is it is like when I see this in real life. End of trail. Dead end. Trail ends. That’s when you have to turn around. Not keep going. That’s also why I prefer a trail that does not do this. I need to keep going or come circle back to the beginning. Or hop in a car and be taken back. Now I’m just stopped. I’ve spent a couple of weeks staring at the sign in my head. The end. Yet I look beyond and it is not. There are no signs saying I can’t keep going. It doesn’t say do not go ahead, private property, it’s not a drop hundreds of feet down. It’s just more of the same without a clear foot path. Is that an end? Or a beginning? These aren’t questions for google like eyelashes aren’t.

Someone has to do it. Trail blaze. It was always my favorite work. Trail work. Being part of where a path can and should go. Thinking of the many steps that will follow once it’s clear where it leads to. I don’t like leaving a trail even to pee. I don’t like the thought that all the little creatures have felt safe knowing the path is way over there so they can habitate safely beyond. Although I’m not sure bugs know these things. But I don’t know what bugs do and don’t know so I’m not just going to guess they know nothing. Plus many bugs aren’t ancient creatures to the woods just a few days alive then not. This doesn’t justify crushing their home with my feet. It is all the more reason not to. If I just had a few days to live and I spent most of it building a home I would be furious if it was smashed. Again, who knows if they can get furious. This train of thought is going to grow way too big. I’m not googling bug feelings or eyelashes.

So for now I’m trying to convince myself I stared at a sign that told me I had to stop. Then I questioned what it really said. Then I lightly moved past it. Then what? No clue. It’s the adventurous part of not knowing. It’s unknown. I usually look for an animal path. A deer path or a way with little thorns. I don’t always get to decide. I try to stay a true direction so I don’t loop myself naturally. I have no internal compass. I barely have the sense of an external one. I don’t have a natural sense of any direction ever. Sometimes I can pretend I’m standing in my old living room looking directly south but that actually doesn’t work unless I’m actually in this room looking south. I can always find the sun. But it’s too far away and never seems reliable to me. I naturally loop. I’ve done it. I’ve come full circle lost once. I naturally veer left. Which could naturally be any direction. Except right. I naturally seem to get to water or drainage ditches that I figure will always lead me out. So where will I get to? Nowhere or everywhere? Can’t google this. It’s not mapped yet. Like eyelashes. You will get no answers. Or too many.

I will not google eyelashes, anything about eyelashes. I will not research eyelashes. I shall not. Will not. Could not. I will not. Said Sam I am.

I am curious about the word google. Curious like a cat but not curious enough to google even why cats are curious. Or do cats have eyelashes? I’ll just whisper softly to my cat and hold her down and look for her eyelashes after I finish removing her matted hair. I’m just curious in general, why that word? It’s like the word dictionary. It is one single word that is all consuming of all words. Like google, it’s all consuming of all things to consume. Even the word google will consume you. All google searches take you to the virus. It’s consuming.