Feeling like a number!

It's been six days now since my dad has died. I find that the more removed I am from the event, the more conflicted I become about him, our relationship, and the past.

Just the calm acknowledgement of his passing, although it was after an extremely long a hard fought battle against his body breaking down, gives me pause at the lack of emotion or sense of lose that I am feeling. When this time came I anticipated inner turmoil for myself over this matter, but I never fathomed how hard it has hit my identity and my being. My friend Lou Cicirello's father had such a greater and more significant impact on my life that when he passed away in 2008, I remember coming apart and being weighed down for days by the loss and grief, that five years later are absent for my own Dad. I guess it bothers me more that I am not upset at not being upset over that fact, which is a larger reason why I refer to him as my Dad and to Lou, Sr. as my Father.

Yesterday morning my Dad was cremated. I had not seen the body or said my goodbyes, but in accordance with my spiritual beliefs that wasn't necesssary. As it grew closer to the time for this event to happen, I felt that if I didn't speak up I wouldn't get a notification to this from my stepbrother's and my Dad's family, as I often felt kept out of the loop.

Yet as it drew closer, I began to get too anxious at the scope of the event and what I thought was to be a larger turn out of support, so I jumped at the chance to avoid the ceremony when myself and the triplets were very mildly showing signs of a stomach virus. The truth of the matter is that I couldn't work myself up to being around people grieving and crying about their loss over someone that I myself couldn't do. The very thought of being around these people: sad, grieving, and looking for support from each other as they mentally grabbed for memories of my Dad was a lie to which I couldn't portray or act, let alone participate in.

Now that I am parent-less, and feeling like no one special and possibly rudderless, but because of the parents I had, free from the yolks and hackles of my past, I wonder if I really will go through the normal stages of grief or if this is something else altogether different. My desire to acquire the truth of that part of me that my Dad contributed hasn't gone away, it has just become stronger; to understand it for what it is regardless of the outcomes and to share that with the world. Its the way he forced me to spend my life explaining that I was alone while he raised another family with all the love, protection, and caring that he withheld from me for no valid reason. I lived with this shame and guilt and difficulty for 44 years, never receiving anything but lies, all the while I had people telling me how wonderful he was.

Lou, you would have never done that to me. In fact, you didn't.