It’s Been Six Months Today (9.3.17)
Six months ago today, my father became just another casualty of the opioid epidemic. He became another data point in some tenth-grader’s research paper.
Six months ago today, my mother became a widow.
My brother and I still have a mom, so we’re not orphans. I guess I don’t have a word for what we became that day.
But I know I am not what I was six months and one day ago.
Before Dad died, writing was a compulsion for me. If I did not regularly purge my thoughts, I felt like I was going to explode. So, I wrote. And I enjoyed writing. So, when he died, I just assumed that writing was going to save me again. But, it didn’t.
Instead, the need to write down my thoughts to make room for new ones seemed to disappear. With the need, so went the desire. And it was terribly sad not to have my words to carry me through. I’ve been lonely without them.
Sometimes words run obsessively through my mind. Words like OXYCONTIN and TEMAZEPAM and OVERDOSE.
Words like SELFISH, and THOUGHTLESS, and HATEFUL.
And those words infuriate me. I get so goddamned mad at him for leaving just when he was starting to be a better guy.
Sometimes the words are more along the lines of
I MISS YOU, DADDY. I LOVED YOU. DID YOU KNOW I LOVED YOU? WERE YOU PROUD? WERE YOU SORRY? DID YOU LOVE ME?
I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING FOR YOU TO NOT BE GONE.
Six months and I’m finally starting to be ready to write again. I still don’t feel that undeniable need, and I don’t know if I want to anymore. It cost me an unreal amount of sleep.
But I’d really like to have the desire back.
Anyway, I just wanted to say,
HUG YOUR PEOPLE, PEOPLE. YOU MAY NOT HAVE THEM TOMORROW.
❤
