I know I am jumping around in this. I am not being consistent with what I am trying to convey, but there is this feeling that I need to hold it back, not delve too deeply in the past, not try to let it out... and I know I need to.
This business with my father's death is always there, always in the back of my mind. Always shaping the things that I do, things that I think.
My father was kidnapped. The men who did it were high, drunk, whatever their excuse was. They kept my father in the trunk of a car, then they took him to a secluded place in the city and shot him, execution style. Two bullets to the back of the head.
There is no way to ease in to it, there is no way to candy coat it... and this is why I have had a hard time writing it.
I tried to find a way to write what had happened so that it wouldn't hurt me so much... but it is like pulling a deeply rooted tree out, there is no easy way to do it. You just have to do it. This never gets easier, the pain never dulls when I speak about it.
Matter of fact, I don't speak of it much. Only a very few people know about it.
Sheltering myself is the only way I have dealt with this death. I have never tried to go to someone for help with it. I can't. I've spoken to counselors before, and I never brought this up. Like if you don't say it, it doesn't exist.
Hiding the fact that I had a very traumatic life after his death has been my only coping mechanism. People believe that if you have been through something so shocking, you must be a broken person, must be a basket case. How can you be walking around, talking to people, being a normal person?
Shock.
Shock is the only answer I have. The only answer I can give when people ask how you make it through something like this. You walk around in a daze, you do not know what is going on, you don't remember things, you can't really function but you really pretend to do so.
Get dinner, do the dishes, wash the laundry, go to school, laugh with your friends, hope that they do not bring up anything... Being 14 should have exempted me from some of those things. It didn't. All of a sudden, I was in the role of mother. My mother shut down. She was literally 'out of it'. The doctors had pumped her so full of Valium that she didn't really know what was going on for a month or two.
I was getting myself to and from school, cooking, doing my own clothes. I also kept my sister's kids, she was working, so someone had to do it. This was a really tough time. I don' t know what I needed, I mean, really, what does a 14 year old need?
I did need guidance. Someone to tell me that things were ok. I needed to know it was ok to be angry, which never really occurred to me. I was angry, I was very angry, but I felt guilty about being angry... I needed someone to tell me, Scream, shake your fist at the sky, be angry.... People tiptoed around me, they made me feel like I needed to be normal, I needed to be on an even keel, like this business shouldn't be talked about, should be stored away, and so that is what I did.
This business with my father's death is always there, always in the back of my mind. Always shaping the things that I do, things that I think.
My father was kidnapped. The men who did it were high, drunk, whatever their excuse was. They kept my father in the trunk of a car, then they took him to a secluded place in the city and shot him, execution style. Two bullets to the back of the head.
There is no way to ease in to it, there is no way to candy coat it... and this is why I have had a hard time writing it.
I tried to find a way to write what had happened so that it wouldn't hurt me so much... but it is like pulling a deeply rooted tree out, there is no easy way to do it. You just have to do it. This never gets easier, the pain never dulls when I speak about it.
Matter of fact, I don't speak of it much. Only a very few people know about it.
Sheltering myself is the only way I have dealt with this death. I have never tried to go to someone for help with it. I can't. I've spoken to counselors before, and I never brought this up. Like if you don't say it, it doesn't exist.
Hiding the fact that I had a very traumatic life after his death has been my only coping mechanism. People believe that if you have been through something so shocking, you must be a broken person, must be a basket case. How can you be walking around, talking to people, being a normal person?
Shock.
Shock is the only answer I have. The only answer I can give when people ask how you make it through something like this. You walk around in a daze, you do not know what is going on, you don't remember things, you can't really function but you really pretend to do so.
Get dinner, do the dishes, wash the laundry, go to school, laugh with your friends, hope that they do not bring up anything... Being 14 should have exempted me from some of those things. It didn't. All of a sudden, I was in the role of mother. My mother shut down. She was literally 'out of it'. The doctors had pumped her so full of Valium that she didn't really know what was going on for a month or two.
I was getting myself to and from school, cooking, doing my own clothes. I also kept my sister's kids, she was working, so someone had to do it. This was a really tough time. I don' t know what I needed, I mean, really, what does a 14 year old need?
I did need guidance. Someone to tell me that things were ok. I needed to know it was ok to be angry, which never really occurred to me. I was angry, I was very angry, but I felt guilty about being angry... I needed someone to tell me, Scream, shake your fist at the sky, be angry.... People tiptoed around me, they made me feel like I needed to be normal, I needed to be on an even keel, like this business shouldn't be talked about, should be stored away, and so that is what I did.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave me your thoughts, comments, stories of grief, or a prayer request.