Dad

Today would have been Dad's birthday. It is hard to believe that he has been gone for over a year already. I expect Mom will have a hard time this whole week. She will deny that she is feeling blue because of missing Dad. Somehow she finds it unacceptable to be sad about Dad having left this earth before her. She thinks it is silly to cry because it just means you are feeling sorry for yourself.

But it is the nature of humans to have feelings, and sad ones are equally as valid as happy ones. I am sure she didn't think it inappropriate to feel happy when she was celebrating her anniversaries when Dad was alive. Even Jesus cried about Lazarus being dead. He empathized with Mary and Martha about their loss and their sorrow.

Well, Mom is Mom and she will deal with her loss her own way, be that a few days of shutting down and thinking that she can't eat or finding it impossible to move around as well as she did last week. How hard life can be when the person you have spent 60 years with is suddenly not there any more. It must be like having an excruciating toothache with no relief in sight. Enough to make you want to tear your hair out!

Once we move past Dad's birthday, she will be able to retrieve the distance necessary to try to deal with herself. If only I could find a magic wand, wave it over her, and see her better. Alas, I have nothing that will help her out. I can only watch her hurt and not be able to console her. I am beginning to understand why Joseph's father Israel mourned the loss of his son for years and hovered over Benjamin so protectively.

And why the brothers became so eager to shelter their father from any further pain and sorrow. They knew he would simply pine away and die of a broken heart. And that is surely what Mom has - a broken heart. Perhaps that is all I can do for Mom. Become sheltering and try to ease her pain by preventing her from having to experience any more loss in her life. That will be hard because she will soon need to sell her house to pay for her care. I wonder how she will be able to let go of the place where all her memories reside. Or maybe that will help. Its so hard to know.