Dear Diary...

The past week has been one of the hardest periods of time I’ve had to deal with. And that’s saying a lot, considering the past three and half years have been difficult.

There have been many ups and downs over the period of this time. Some really low lows, and some really good ups. It’s life. Life is not something a person can go through without struggle, pain, and hurt. It’s one of those things we, as humans, don’t like talking about because… well, it’s uncomfortable. To feel these things is to be human.

And everything took a head this week. About a month and a half ago, we received news that my father in law’s cancer was no longer fightable, that the loosing fight now had an end in sight, and it was not the ending we all hoped. Death is natural, death happens, but this one stung. I can’t even say that it was a grim reminder that we all die in the end, but it was a reminder that even the best of people have unfortunate endings.

We had a month and a half to prepare. We were told 6-12 months, but felt like that time was just fluff. If you had told me that was how much time we had left three and a half years ago, I would have laughed. From all the research I had done, and the three years of graduate school in counselor education, I knew that the cancer my father in law was dealing with was not something easy to handle. It was aggressive, not easily treatable, and can spread fast. It was not one that could easily be reached with surgery. So we had to put faith and money into the hopes that the treatment would do its thing… and it didn’t.

I will say that it gave us a wonderful last three years with him. It forced me into trying to really improve my health (which I knew I needed to do anyway), trying to make myself healthier so that if children happened along the way, I’d be in a better place.

Children never came (well, haven’t come yet; I can’t say that they’ll never happen), financial debt hit, and then we have the whole state of the world.

Fast forward to this week. I was delivered news that my current position in my school may be moved (involuntary transfer), but because our budget hasn’t passed now twice, I am guaranteed a job, but we don’t know where and in what (it’ll be either music or counseling). At the same time this news was delivered, we received news that my father in law was being moved into inpatient hospice and was starting morphine.

If you’ve never had to deal with that, morphine is one of those last few things they do to provide comfort in your final hours. In my experiences of talking with people who have lost loved ones and have gone through this before, they have all said the same thing: when morphine is given, you know that there is not much time left.

This was Wednesday.

As of Thursday, 11:00pm, my father in law passed on. My mother in law was with him, talking with him, as he drew his final breath. We all had said goodbye to him earlier in the day (or in my case, Wednesday night), but with the intention we would see him Friday morning.

Loss hurts. Loss of a job is one thing, but the loss of a loved one, someone who is not related by blood but by the bonds you’ve forged through and with other people, hurts so deep.

I hit the anger stage of grief rather quickly. I was angry all of Wednesday and Thursday. I’m still angry, but it is more of an acceptance.

I have a hard time crying in public. I’m not sure if it’s because my subconscious says that I need to be strong for the people around me or what.

But seeing my father in law, still and not breathing, hit. I struggled. I broke watching my mother in law grieve. And I still struggle watching her go through the motions. I struggle seeing my husband mourn, and my sister in law. I struggled breaking the news to my parents.

I’m struggling writing this post.

But I struggle crying in front of people.

And so, when I’m alone, I cry. I cry hot tears. I mourn, I am in pain. It hurts.

I am existing in the moment right now. The things I know I can go to and focus on to help me cope. I fear what the future brings because I’m not sure what I need to do now. I figure that this will be a Monday morning me problem, as I need to do so many things and talk to so many people.

Anyway.