A ton of bricks

Grief hit me again last week, like a ton of bricks falling out of the sky and landing with a thump onto my chest. It took my breath away, spun me around to a direction I wasn't planning on going.

Its the first year anniversary of when my father got sick - he had a series of strokes that we were just learning about - in the middle of last April. He died a month later on May 20. I had been feeling mostly fine for several months, missing my father but in a more joyful less sorrowful way. I didn't expect such strong grief to wash over me yet again just because of this anniversary. It didn't seem right or appropriate that I should feel so lousy after so much time had passed - feelings which inevitably made me feel even worse. I told some friends. Each one reminded me that it does make sense to feel hard grief again and again and in unexpected ways. Knowing this makes it easier to endure.

Its like earlier grief in tone but not tenor, less sharp and overwhelming and harder to unearth because its not so fresh. It seems to get worse in the afternoons and makes me want to take to my bed until the hardest part passes which I (guiltily) do sometimes when concentration on anything else becomes impossible.

Yesterday at the corner store, an old man took my money for the juice I bought for E.and gave me back some change. He had hands like my father's with thick fingers that make picking up dimes and quarters difficult. I miss my father's hands, his eyes, his gorgeous smile. How lucky, I thought, that this man has such old hands for someone who loves him to hold.