A deadly (pun intended) equation

PMS + grief = Major personality challenge

PMS + grief = Really, really sleepy

PMS + grief + back-to-school prep = Personality challenged, sleepy, confused me.


Well, the PMS will lift soon, the grief will lessen, and school will start.

There is hope.

But I still have to write those thank you notes. My thanks and gratitude is heartfelt and sincere. But I'm tired. And grieving. And caught up in back-to-school mayhem.

Sigh.

Grief sucks

The worst thing about the world without my father is not that I didn't see him today. It's that I won't see him tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week. Or next year. Or ever.

It feels wrong.

And I don't like wrong. When things are wrong in my world, I can usually fix them. Or, if worse comes to worse, I know that I can wait them out. I can endure knowing that whatever is wrong will pass. After all, everything passes.

I know that this is a problem I can't fix. I can't make my world right again if I define "right" as having my father here. And so I must endure. I must wait for time to pass.

And it will. Time will pass. Pain will lessen. Grief will fade. I'm told that someday I'll wake up and notice that I feel better. I will have redefined "right." It will happen in time.

In time.

But right now I hate time.

It's taking me further and further away from my father.

So it goes.

My father showed me this quote several years ago. I had it framed for him and it hung on the wall of his office. I read it at the memorial service on Saturday.

Although the world about us looks threatening and is full of injustice, cruelty, and vulgarity, I cannot be pessimistic about it or cynical...But I have been lucky. I have enjoyed freedom and food enough and good health and I have done the work I enjoy. Life is still good in spite of its visitations and chances...to relish to the full the pleasure of the senses including good food, good wine, good music and beautiful surroundings. I find little in common with those people who tincture all their pleasure with guilt. They seldom bring much joy to the world of comfort to others. I doubt whether plain living is the necessary accompaniment of high thinking. Nor do I believe that virtue consists in leading an ascetic, solitary and unspotted life. A life without commitment to others, without dedication to a purpose beyond ourselves and without close partnership is only half a life.

Carl Binger, "The Way to Perfection"
The Two Faces of Medicine

Lest we be too serious about the whole thing, I shared another favorite. It's one that my father and I would say to each other upon hearing of someone's death.

Well, he wasn't going to write Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, anyway.

Kurt Vonnegut, "Galapagos"

August 3

Burkhard Wolfgang Voelkening
March 27, 1927 - August 3, 2008.