3 weeks and 6 days

It's been 3 weeks and 6 days. I just don't know what I am doing. I'm driving myself nuts. I haven't really cried yet and feel like I have yet to truly mourn the loss of my dad. My step-mom has been great. She has really been there and it is comforting to know that she gets me and knows exactly what I am feeling. She has been keeping busy too and I think that is her way of avoiding the inevitable...accepting that he is gone. I'm avoiding it too. I just can't believe it. My logical mind knows he's gone but my heart can't accept it. So I'm kind of in a tug-a-war with myself.

My step-mom has said so many enlightening things to me this week. It has made me think about my life overall. We tend to take life for granted and push things off for tomorrow. We make plans far in advance, not really thinking about the fact that tomorrow is not promised to us. One day you're there and the next, you can be gone. "You have to do what you can when you can. Because you never know when it's your time to leave this life." This is what she said to me the other day when she told me that she was going to bereavement counseling because she needs to be able to start living again without my dad. She also suggested I do the same. She knows. She knows that I am not coping well. I'm hanging by a thread.

I feel so guilty by letting so much time pass in between times I spent with my dad. We spoke often on the phone but we didn't see each other regularly. I keep thinking about how I always planned to go with him on one of his Greyhound runs to Montreal. And now, we can't. It kind of reminds me of 9/11. I always wanted to eat at the Top of the World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. I kept putting it off because who knew that the WTC would be gone one day? But it happened. And after that, I always said I would never put off anything again. Well, I did. I always felt like my dad would live past 100. I took that for granted. So many things.

So I am going to join a bereavement group. I need to talk to people who will be open and keep it real. Not this "Sorry for your loss, you'll get over it in time. I understand how you feel." To that, I say KMA. Word. I just need an outlet where I can speak and not be thought of as crazy. I just think so many people are fake and it really pisses me off.

I need to get better with this because I know I have to continue to do big things in this life to make Daddy proud and to be happy. I just don't know how to let go and grieve. And as I am writing this, it just came to me. I don't want to let go because that would mean I am accepting that he's gone. See, that's my logical mind talking. But right now it is not in line with my heart. I can't accept that he's gone. I refuse to.

The one good thing to come out of this, if anything, is that it has brought all of us closer together. My mom and my step-mom are actually talking and my mom said to me tonight, "I feel so bad for her because I had him for 34 years and she only had him for 11. She must feel like she got robbed of the best thing that ever happened to her. We have to be there for her." Yes, my mom is a sweetheart and good person. It gives me hope for all of us because Daddy's legacy lives on.