In the end

I spent the day in a meeting. A meeting about things I didn't really understand. Taking notes and wondering how it was I got here. I sent a text to my mother. "I have a bad feeling," I wrote. "Please call and see." The meeting ran long. I figured she hadn't heard back. But in the back of my mind I knew. I knew before I sent the message. It was already a fact.

So home I drove, annoyed that I had spent my day so counterproductively. This wasn't the dream. It didn't even rank on the scale. Actually, it was something I would force someone to do as a type of purgatory. But hey, it's a job... right.

I complained to myself. But there are worse things. I knew.

I came home. To a kitchen in use. A rarity in my house. I got to the corner of the stove and everything was clear. I could read it in my mother's eyes. Even before she spoke.

"I'm sorry" she said. And in that moment, in those words a lifetime of sorrow built and the tears fell, for just a moment. I can't really do the emotion justice. I don't think. It was like knowing that the hurt and anguish of not knowing him had been released from but also permanently locked into my mind. I will always know that I didn't know the man who is half of me, but in that same thought, I never have to fear his reactions or judgments, his anger or resentment, ever again.

Sometimes I feel like this evil person. This woman, with no regard for the meaning of his life. But then I feel as though he never really appreciated the value of mine either.... and the relief is, well, it really isn't.

I know the guilt is perhaps misplaced. I know that the anger I bear him is somewhat useless... being that he is gone. But I can't seem to dismiss it. It is there, just as he never was. These mixed emotions that toy with my dreams and live in my mind, a resident that will not pay, but also will not leave.

Sometimes I find myself longing to shut off. So that I can forget. Just put the world on pause so that all of the anger and grief and happiness and regret and joy and longing can be held at bay. But a girl can't shut off a part of herself... can she?

Someday I will think of him and just be at peace. I will look inside myself and feel like he had this chance to change his relationship with his oldest child and he just didn't, but it will be okay. Because, in his own way, he did shape who I am. In his absence I experienced an entirely different life than I would have had with him around. And someday I will be okay with all of it. I will. Really.