Jun 15

 After a shitty start with my foot in the morning, curiously by afternoon it had improved significantly to the point of tentatively discarding crutches again. It was very sore in the morning, and I presumed it would just get worse at that point until it was excruciating to even touch, but, somehow it seems to have got better.

The healing rate over the four bloody repeat performances does seem to have increased with each subsequent fail, but this one of just a few days takes the cake.

Eh well. Long may it continue.

Today I took Hazel home in reasonably good spirits. My foot was working again. I was keeping all the dark things at bay. And it was nice to have company around the house. Poppy practically never left my side, often bugging me for attention, dinner, or otherwise. It was nice.

The house has fallen too quiet again in the aftermath. I catch myself looking up to see where Athena is, knowing full well she isn't there anymore, just like I am sticking a finger in that wound to torture myself. It works. I miss her. Dearly. I miss them both terribly. But I am dealing with it. As shitty as that is. And it is. Shitty. Her bed still smells of her. It is brutal. I have to shake it off. I cannot wrap my head around life, the loss of it, the enormous hole where something wonderful once was. It makes no sense. It is too awful. Stop Johnny. Step back from it. Do not try to absorb it all at once. Give yourself a lot of time. Go slow. Do not torture yourself. Sigh.

There have been moments in the car, thoughts detached, don't linger on the dark spots, that I have felt good, music blaring out to drown everything and my symptoms dialed down to a grumbling minimal. At such times I get a glimpse of what my life could have been, but largely isn't. I take what I can get. 10 minutes listening to old school tracks and vibing is a high point.

It has been on my mind lately to phone the old man. And fate perhaps intervening, or that curious sense of entanglement and weirdness, my old man has taken a turn for the worse in the last couple of days. Collapsing and falling over. Dizzy perhaps. Crashing to the floor. Not good. My brother saw him fall into the bins and hit the floor and pulled him back to have a sit down for a moment. He brushed it off. But my brother notes he looked terrible. And today he wasn't much better. Ho hum.

Today I gave him a call. First time in a very long time. I haven't spoken to him since Christmas when I saw him in person for 5 minutes. Talking to him is difficult. Not because of disagreement or hostility. It's just. Difficult. He has never in his life asked about me. What I've been up to. How have I been. Nothing about me or my life. Ever. Which makes conversations one sided and a lot harder - there is less to talk about when you don't share news. It's ok. I know what he's like.

He also seems to have got to that age, that level of decline where talking to him has got difficult. Like talking to a child. It's not that he isn't all there. Or capable or remembering or thinking. It's just. You have to steer the conversation. Like a child. What did you do today. How are you. Did you enjoy that. What are you doing at school. Etc. The kid lacks the werewithal to engage in a conversation without constant prompting.

So it's like that. My mom was the same right at the end due to ill health. I'm not sure what it is in the old man. Perhaps just age, taking its awful toll. Perhaps where he has been on his own now for 18 months. I am not sure.

I get a distinct gloomy sense about it all. My instincts tell me he is nearing the end. Not by his own hand - surprisingly. But just through age. And perhaps a lack of engagement. A slipping away. It happens. It is what happens to all of us that are not set in the best of sunlight with the best of care. Neglected and without purpose we wither. Long term married couples end up dying one after the other soon enough more often than not. Men in particular curl up and die. There is a reason women outlive men. And it's not genetics. It is to do with the amount of care of self.

So I spoke as best as I could with my dad. It wasn't easy. His answers were not clear. A blurring of the replies. A blurring of the mind there. His sharpness is gone.

And.

Surprisingly.

Or perhaps not.

It made me very sad.

Emotional.

Something has clicked, that I am, I think, shortly going to lose my dad.

And that will be yet another connection to the past that is gone for good.

Perhaps it is my emotional state. I am not exactly doing well on the whole loss front. Ares. My mom. Athena. One after the other. Year on year. By any measure, those are some of the most brutal if not most brutal losses you can take. And I've had them. In succession. My life always seems to be something of a trial by fire fuck you hard mode.

Perhaps I'm just being sorry for myself again.

Perhaps the old man will rally. Wax and wane. The lesson I have learned from my mom. From myself. Is that who we are, our health, ebbs and flows. It is not linear. It is not a steady line. It comes up and down. And it is in the dips where you find you might not exit, and somewhere in there, end up lost. Gone.

But I don't know.

My sixth sense, always uncanny, has gone off.

And I am left on my own with it again. Sad. Grief.

I will be ok.

It is not a happy path.

And once again, I do not know what comes next. For any of it.

Hazel is struggling with her own dad. He wants to come and see her. He is trying hard. He cares a lot. She doesn't know where she is. Or whether she wants that.

I support her all I can. Listen. No judgment.

But it also occurs to me.

Cherish your dad. He gives a shit. He is trying. He will not be there forever. That someone in your life who obviously cares that much - don't take it for granted. You don't know what you have there. Be grateful. Meet him half way.

I am very aware that isn't what I have with my dad. Or have ever had.

Like many things. I have insight on it from the point of view of something awful. A cautionary tale.

I wish, as I suppose we all must do, I had an easier life. A kinder one. A warmer one. A less isolated one.

The road is hard and shit.

Cherish those who are close to you and you can hug and share a laugh or a cry. Life is short.