The Space Queen

~ 6 ~

Dad has died. There's no way around it, and there's no way that I can bring him back. I found myself praying by my bed, then felt him watching me from afar. Saw the outlines of his body against the doorframe. Felt the impending sense of loss, and the reality that he as not going back into his body. Then, I went downstairs, to where my mother was crying, and my aunt on the phone telling me what had happened. I calmly said "yes" to everything she was telling me. "I'm so sorry" she said. Then, handing the phone back to my mom, I went to sit on the bed between her and my sister. It wasn't supposed to be this way. We sat there, in the living room, feeling helpless to the universe.

The technology is mostly infallible. So why did it not help my dad? Well, first of, they thought there was a bowel blockage on top of his heart attack. They were working to stop the blockage and fix his heart with a pacemaker. What they didn't know was that there was an infection somewhere else in his body, one that they could not find. There had been many times in the past  few months where Mom went to different doctors, and came back realizing that they could not find an issue. By the time his heart stopped a second time, there was a lack of oxygen to his brain. If he were to come back, he would not be the same as he was. He had said to Mom, "If I am to come back, and not be the same, then I would rather not come back at all." Mom knew that it would not be his wishes, especially in his pain, to come back and be a burden on all of us. Then, his heart went into a shock a third time - shaking in place, with no way to revive it. He was officially offline. They unplugged him, and that was that.

For those who don't know, I have been gone from the internet because of my grief. I didn't want any distractions - those were the distractions that kept me from paying attention to him in the first place: games on my phone, photos of what other people were doing / traveling to, writing for my class, checking on my grades... Technology gave me a sense that it was never enough what I did. Technology is a distraction that keeps you away from your loved ones, and when it's over, all you can see is the time wasted you spent on it. All I wanted was to be away from it, to feel my grief, and to not have any distractions. Unfortunately, technology has a very placating effect. It's easy to allow technology to reach beyond the screen and wrap you in it's embrace. When you're crying so hard, your heart shaking from sobs, you know you have to stop at some point. So, eventually, I began watching TV and movies. Many of what I watched had to do with ghosts, hauntings, and scary things. I never liked this stuff before, but because I can't feel anything right now, it feels highly therapeutic to be waiting for the fear / scream to come. The darkness in the film, it's something that reflects the lack of feeling that I feel inside. Isn't that all death and evil really is in the end? A feeling of nothingness?

Yes, it's been 3 months, but it feels like it's been 3 years. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that I've even gotten through the day - that I should be falling apart more than I am. For the most part, this process has forced me to retake Public Composition - which makes me even more delayed on the path to graduation and getting a career. Instead, I have had to sit in on Corporate Management and Communication classes of people already working in their scientific fields (like I was supposed to!) Most of the work is busywork about working and researching that has nothing to do with learning new content of our subjects. Unfortunately, both classes will go on for 6 months. Luckily, I am able to distract myself from my feelings. Even though I know that suppressing my emotions will cause them to eventually come back, I know that I am surviving for now.

For the most part, I've been sick at home with nothing to do but read and watch videos on the internet. I've been taking classes and listening to gurus that are talking about the struggle we are having within the world right now. Unlike my mom and sister who are working, I'm caught between trying to distract myself and getting into the waves of my emotions. If you wonder why we haven't discussed his death, it's because we are in a state of denial, and why blame us? It happened so quick. There's only so many self-help articles you can read. There's only so much that you can throw yourself into the future and what you are imagining for your future, until you have to turn back the clock and realize that the things you hope to manifest aren't things that you can hold onto in the present at all.

So, for the most part, I've been focused on reading Engineering and Physics textbooks I check out from the library. I fill my head with as much information I can swallow down within it, and then I try to release everything in my head through the act of writing and meditation. I hardly ever sleep, but when I do, I dream about Dad, Grandma, and all the other relatives that have had a significant impact on my life. Then I wake up in the morning. Sunlight shines onto my body, and I'm awakened into the day. I feel as if I slept for hundreds of years, and that the world is just an illusion.