I started this post back at the beginning of February. It isn’t because I don’t know what to write that I haven’t finished it. It’s because there’s so much to say that I don’t know where to end it. Or where to start a new post. Or if it should be a book or a project, maybe. Or if, as Finn suggested to me when I talked to her about it, it should become it’s own website.

I have this habit. It may be weird, or maybe it’s morbid or maybe it’s just appreciating what I have in the people in my life. My habit is this: When I am just letting my mind wander, I often (very often) tend to write eulogies in my head about the people in my life that I love. This started long before I lost my father-in-law in January. It probably started at least a couple years ago. I don’t know why or what precipitated it. Maybe my Mom was sick or in the hospital and I let my mind wander to her eulogy or something. I’m not sure. Whatever the case, it just happens. It’s not an obsession or a fixation, it’s just something that I do.

I have given 3 eulogies in my life. The first one was for my grandmother, Ebba. I was 24 years old and pregnant with Emily. I loved my grandma. We were close. She had her idiosyncrasies and she was a drug addict, which made her very difficult for some people to like. Even though I was witness to several of those drug addiction episodes, I loved her anyway. She was still my grandma. I was devastated that she wouldn’t be there to see my family grow by one more. I miss her still.

The second eulogy, I had the opportunity (and, yes, I consider it an “opportunity”) to read to the subject of the eulogy and that was my Dad. My Dad died knowing what would be said about him after he was gone. He died knowing that he was loved and would be missed. He died knowing that he would leave a legacy.

The last eulogy I gave (well, to be honest, mine was just a part in a larger eulogy that was given by all his kids and grandkids) was for my father-in-law. It was probably the hardest one for me because I realized that he did not die knowing how I felt about him. He did not know that I loved him and that I thought of him as a father. I never told him any of that. That bothers me. While I was writing it, I called my mother-in-law just to tell her that I love her. I have told her before, in so many words, but I wanted her to know it straight up.

Coincidentally, I read the book Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom since I started this post. It is an excellent book and there are a lot of quotes from it that I could use in this project/book/website (whatever it turns out to be). If you don’t know the story, Mitch is asked by his childhood rabbi to give his eulogy when he dies. The book is about Mitch getting to know the rabbi as a person before he dies, while at the same time he is getting to know another man of religion, a former drug addicted criminal who is now an inner city Detroit pastor. Mitch says in the book, while the rabbi was in a coma, “I went home and waited for the phone call. I did not start on his eulogy. It felt wrong to do so while he was alive.” I understand that, I think, but isn’t also good to count all the blessings a person has and realize how they’ve made a difference in your life? Maybe this is the wrong way. Maybe this project/book/website should die with this post.

My idea was to write a book with eulogies for all the people in my life who have made a difference in my life or in the lives of others. I would intersperse the eulogies with other stuff–quotes, words about eulogies, etc.. Finn’s idea was that it would make a great website, sort of like PostSecret, where people could send in their eulogies for other people to be posted on the website. Maybe eventually, it could be made into a book, although I’m not sure how you would handle the legalities of that. I suppose you’d have to have people sign releases or something. Anyway, what do you think? How far should this go? Should it die with this post?

Just found out that a dear friend who has cancer and had a stem cell transplant around Christmas time isn’t doing well and there’s not much else to do. Then the song “How to Save a Life”, by The Fray came on. Sometimes, I think that there’s this sort of cosmic thing going on. It’s like, when my Dad was dying and my brother was trying desperately to get home before he died and then, almost at the exact moment my Dad died, the song “In the Arms of the Angels” by Sarah Maclachlan came on the radio in my brother’s car, and he knew that Dad was gone. It’s just weird, y’know?

I’ve spent so much time telling you to shut up, I’m not sure I know how to listen to you anymore. You never have anything good to say, anyway. You are often the source of my depression. You are the reason for those times when my self-esteem takes a dive. You are the cause of all my worries. When I am weak, you rise up to kick me while I’m down. When I am strong, you try to take me down a few pegs. You are the source of almost all of the negativity I ever feel and often cause me great anxiety.

You tell me things like, “you are stupid,” and “you are fat,” and “you are a terrible wife and mother.” You add more and more helpings of worry onto any worry or concern that I might have, be it about my children or my health or my husband. You are incessant. You are persistent. You never stop. Which is why I have learned/am learning to tune you out. Almost nothing good ever comes from listening to you.

There are only a few things that I have ever heard from you that have slightly lifted me up. (It is so much easier to listen to and believe the negative than it is to believe in the positive.) They are that I am a good nurse, that I am good with kids and the elderly and that I am a good writer.

I need to learn to listen to the part of you that is good and right and positive and subdue the part of you that is mean and spiteful and negative. It’s a work in progress.

This is part of a writing challenge at {W}rite-Of-Passage, a community of bloggers who are looking to get back to the writing part of blogging. To join, click the link.

I don’t know what my job description is. The job title is Spouse of a Grieving Child. I’ve never done this job before. I didn’t apply for it. I wasn’t hired for it. I wasn’t trained for it. I have no idea what I am doing. So far, it’s the most difficult job I’ve ever had. It’s painful. It’s confusing. It’s frustrating.

In the days following his father’s death, Jason told me that he didn’t know what to do. He’s the eldest child and he feels like, somehow, he needs to step in and take his father’s place. Or at least take over some of the things that his father did. Things like helping my mother-in-law, Laurel, with jobs around her house. Or helping my nephew, Logan, with his Boy Scout projects. Or driving his sister, Steph, and her daughter, Sabrina, to the airport when they go to Chicago in February.

I feel like I facilitated these opportunities for him. I felt like that was part of my job. I told both Laurel and Steph that Jason needed them to need him. He needed to feel like he was doing something. At least that’s what I thought. I don’t know. I’ve never done this job before. But, I think it makes him feel better to be needed. I think it makes him feel better when he’s busy.

I’d be dishonest, though, if I said that I wasn’t worried. It may be selfish, but I’m worried that I am going to lose my husband. I’m afraid that I am going to lose him to his family and to his grief. I’ll still do it, this job as I see it, because it’s what he needs. I love him and I’ll give him whatever he needs to overcome or live with his grief. I will let go as much as I can without giving up.

I see the pain in his eyes. I hear the pain in his sighs. I don’t know how to take it away. Actually, I know that I can’t. It’s time…time is the only thing that will make it better. I know that he’ll always miss his Dad. All I can do for now is listen. And hold him. And wait. I’m learning. I’m learning to do this job.

This is part of a writing challenge at {W}rite-Of-Passage, a community of bloggers who are looking to get back to the writing part of blogging. To join, click the link.

I had a whole other post written for this challenge. Then something happened. At 12:49 this morning, my father-in-law, Jerry Miller, passed away. He had many health issues, but it was his heart that finally gave out. He had an arrhythmia that required him to have a pacemaker. He had congestive heart failure. New Year’s Eve, he went in to Urgent Care and they sent him to the ER because his pacemaker was repeatedly shocking him. He had to be repeatedly shocked with the defibrillator for the next several days. Probably close to 100 times. During most of those shocks he was conscious and they were very painful. He had been intubated* and extubated**. He had a central and femoral line*** to help with his blood pressure, which was, at one time, non-existent. We would think he was getting better and then, he would turn the other way. Then he would get better and turn back the other way again. The last time, it was a different heart rhythm that they could not shock. They could not get him back. Maybe it was just too much for his heart to take.

Last night, before he died, I saw something on a TV show that said that the best way to honor those we have loved who have gone before us is to live well. My husband and I made a pact at the hospital this morning, after his father passed, that we would honor his Dad by taking care of ourselves better and by living well.

That is my resolution. I will honor my father-in-law and my own Dad by taking care of myself and living well. Life is too damn short. You should feel good while you’re living it.

*Insertion of a tube through the mouth or the nose and into a patient’s lungs to help them breathe. Usually followed with mechanical ventilation which is the use of a machine to breathe for the patient. Commonly referred to as “on life support”.

**To remove a tube from a hollow organ or passageway, often from the airway.

***central venous catheteris a catheter placed into a large vein in the neck (internal jugular vein), chest (subclavian vein) or groin (femoral vein).

This is part of a writing challenge at {W}rite-Of-Passage, a community of bloggers who are looking to get back to the writing part of blogging. To join, click the link.