And Here We Are

I still can regularly hear the music and words and see the blue/misty swirling as the Highlander credits go through my memory.

♫ “And here we are…we’re the princes of the universe. Here we belong: fighting for survival. We’ve come to be the rulers of you all…” ♪

It’s those first four words that hit me today. Tonight.

“And here we are.”

It’s been A YEAR.

Tonight–December 29th into the wee hours…just before 2am of the 30th. My “mini-breakdown” as stuff hit me just how serious it could actually be, just after 7, in the kitchen. 3-ish hours before Mom got “that” call and such.

Even this year later, I still see that room. I still see him in that bed. I still see those couple hours, those moments. I still see what I saw as nurses/doctors/whoever swarmed that room right after I’d become aware that SOMETHING CHANGED…that there was a different sound or a lack of sound, as I held Dad’s hand and knelt by that bed praying we weren’t going to lose him.

Maybe it’s not the same SHOCK anymore…maybe it’s not some actual, raw HORROR that I feel anymore…as much as it is just that ongoing sense of loss; of missing him.

Of all the stuff I’ve (tried to) throw myself into these last months; all the experiences and activities that I haven’t gotte to share with him, tell him about, etc.

All the what-if’s and feelings of what-should-have-beens and what-could-have-beens and all that.

As tough as things were–for him, certainly, as well as for Mom and me in the caretaking–I always, ALWAYS couched ANY ventage or admission of frustration in the honest, heartfelt truth that howEVER stuff was, I would NEVER “trade” Dad for stuff to be easier.

---

I don’t even fully know what I’d hoped to write tonight…but this isn’t it.

Feels so…contrived? I don’t know.

It’s a year.

Selfishly… IIIIIIIIII have “made it” just over 52 weeks, this year, despite it.

The masque is often up, though I let it slide for certain people at certain times. I’ve done a cycle with Griefshare (and planning on at least one more, if only for keeping some of that “structure” to my life AND being able to interact with others in-person who DO and CAN know what it is that I know…though NONE of us would ever have WANTED to know.

I “should” have so much more to put to words right this moment; far more eloquency to share.

But I sit here, and it’s down to just these several hours until crossing the one-year mark. And while that’s not gonna change anything, really…there’s just something psychological to it.

Nothing will be “less than a year ago” anymore. It’ll be “a year ago” or “just over a year ago” and having been within the final 47 hours of 2021, it’ll soon be an entire year in between the year Dad was here…and the current year. A gulf that–as real as it’s about to be–still seems unreal to me, to whoever I was for just over 41 years. Until the virtually-unimaginable happened.

My words are sorely lacking here.

And I just want to turn my mind off and veg out and not think.

Maybe I’ll manage 1 of those 3.