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Life is a motherfucker.


GoBengals

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I lost my dad May 30th. I have been pretty lost since.

 

My dad takes the whole family on a florida beachhouse vacation each year, he goes down in march, we meet in april, all come back end of april.

 

We all couldnt go, he was already there with corona kicked off. corona cancelled the beach house part, he was there for 2 months, decided to come back late during the lower corona time, made it back safe. 

 

We didnt see eachother while he was gone, and once back since he was 68 and im  afat ass  with asthma, we kept apart aside from 2 meet ups to exchange some items, and then towards the end we went to the grocery store he and my sister and i. 

 

Mind you he rode his bike in the sand on the beach 10-20 miles per day while in florida... on the 20 mile one he felt some tightness in his chest, and when he finished it took 1-2 hrs for the heart rate to go down. he thought it was odd but it didnt happen again.

 

on another longish ride no pain but heart rate took a while to slow down... he didnt tell either of us this...

 

so he is at home, pulling weeds and mowing grass, feels the pain again, and again heart rate slow to lower.

 

he calls the heart doc, doc tells him to go to ER now... he reluctantly goes..... again he didnt tell us shit still, didnt even know he was at the hospital. i talked to him an hour before he went.

 

so we find out the next day, he texts us in the AM that he is getting tests done. and then doctor calls my sister letting her know its a serious thing.

 

so we head down, we have to take turns going in due to covid, they tell us he is moving hospitals for analysis, so she just stays in there until the move, i dont get to see him then... once moved we rotated every hour... i got to spend 2-3 hours with him, but he was fine, we bullshitted, turns out he needs a triple bypass...... wtf.... this is a guy who exercises daily, he is thin, healthy, he eats fish and chicken, brown rice, a little wine, once or twice a month pizza or burger with the rest of us... takes vitamins, fish oil, red yeast rice, etc.. low dose aspirin daily, does all the right things..

 

turns out all 3 arteries are 90% blocked...

 

what. the. fuck.

 

so they prep for surgery, it happens the next day, we cant be there, covid. so we get phone updates, 7 hr surgery..

 

these things are 98% successful, 200,000 done per year... the odds are good here. we are concerned but not worried or scared. 

 

he makes it out.. nurse gives updates, all is good

 

that night, all is ok, blood pressure little low, but within normal range after that procedure, not worried. 

 

that night... my sister shows up on my porch, tears in her eyes. hes gone.

 

one of the bypasses didnt take, they tried to get him back into surgery to fix it, he coded, they couldnt bring him back.

 

i have never been so lonely in my life. i lost my mother to H1N1, one of 13,000 deaths int he entire country in 2009. I lose my dad, during covid, to a bypass procedure with a nearly perfect success rate. ... both before i am even 40 years old.

 

i have no parents, i have no grandparents, i have some cousins in ohio i dont see or talk to really. I have one aunt/uncle with 3 cousins i do talk to... and my sister... so my entire family consists of 6 total people now. and i talked to my dad 5-6 times a week. that cutoff is a tough one, i have reach for the phone to call him many times. 

 

there are many many things that im having trouble processing. as my sister and i are going through the estate process, he was pretty frugal and minimalistic, but also kept everything, if that makes sense. 

 

he had not a cent of debt. he didnt decorate, not a picture on a single wall, but he had 65,000 tools it seems, and kept every piece of lexan he ever met. you need a screw? bolt? he has it. i promise its in a jar in a cabinet. labelled and in order.

 

ever issue of boundry water journal? got it. his abacus from college? got it. his college text books? got em.

 

going through someones stuff, makes you think youll find stuff you didnt know. not with him, he was who he was on the surface his whole life.

 

we have until monday to be done with his belongings at his house. we never put it on the market but a buyer popped up and we went ahead with the offer. the home means nothing to us, he didnt care for it, he moved here to be with us. so that im not sad about. it wasnt our childhood home, it wasnt the one he built in ohio. it was just a place.

 

there ahve been some tough calls on what to keep and not keep. you want to keep everything. how many thousands of times did i see that eyeglasses case on his counter? how many months did it take for him to pick that perfect wood furniture for his room?

 

but you cant keep it all, and there is no logical reason to. so we stuck with what pulled at our heart strings. which is still probably too much to keep. 

 

im having some big issues dealing with what to do with my life going forward. life is too short to do thinghs you dont like, to work where you arent appreciated, etc... i do like what i do and i AM appreciated. so im good for now, but my industry likely has a life span. 

 

he retired at 55 or 56.... even that seems too late. work your ass off for 30 years and live for 10-12 years? seems kind of pointless.

 

i did what i wanted and what i loved from 17-22(managed musicians, ran record label, ran teen club). from 23-35 i did what i HAD to(shitty retail and sales jobs) . now as i am 39 and hit 40 next year.. i am going to make sure i only do what i like to moving forward. I dont know what that looks like.

 

I have a sophmore with sports aspirations and an 8th grader with video game aspirations (lol). who both will start the year schooling from home.

 

my wife has a better job after leaving Chase, that soulless hellpit. we will be debt free by the end of the year, and i have a small income that wont ever go away if i dont make it.

 

every day sucks, its like office space, every day i wake up is the new worst day of my life.  im trying to force positivity back into the world around me. but im dead inside, i always said i was dead inside when my mom passed, but man im 100% dead inside now. my only motivation is not fucking up my kids as they become men. 

 

after that there isnt a ton of meaning in anything i do on a daily basis.

 

you never really stop trying to impress your parents, is subconscious but its there. there is no one left to impress. 

 

having to spend a few days a week at his place cleaning and selling and packing things is brutal, its an emotional day, then takes a day or two to get head back to normal, then youre there again. its been 6 weeks of mind games with myself.

 

that part is almost over. i dont know what to expect then.

 

i just needed to vent all of this. i need to get into a psychologist, but i only want to do that in person, and thats not going to happen right now either... covid.

 

with all the terrible things this virus has done and is doing, its making this already terrible process a complete nightmare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, CincyInDC said:

Sorry for your loss.  You're set to become the patriarch now.  Be the man to your kids that your dad was to you.  Focus on that and you won't feel as lost.   

Solid advice. I'd add be the husband your wife needs.

 

I'm sorry to hear this bro, as always if you need anything reach out here or on FB.

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43 minutes ago, Jamie_B said:

Solid advice. I'd add be the husband your wife needs.

 

I'm sorry to hear this bro, as always if you need anything reach out here or on FB.

 

I am very sorry to hear this Ryan @GoBengals

 

Solid advice here as well. 

 

I'd add that you need to be the bro that @Jamie_B needs.  I will always poke you both with a stick to try to get you to smile a bit.

 

:ninja:

 

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Fathers and Sons. Sons and Fathers.

 

Sorry to hear about this, Go. Just remember that your Dad lives on within you. Sounds cliche, but it's true. Over the years I have spoken with others about this phenomenon and it turns out that this happens to a lot of us:

 

In the period after my father's death I used to have dreams about him. Then I would wake up and feel crushed. Yet, as time passed, I came to realize that it was a blessing when I had a dream with/about my Dad. I'd wake up and feel like I had just had a nice conversation with him, etc... . Doesn't replace the real thing, of course, but it helps.

 

Hang in there.

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On 7/26/2020 at 2:10 AM, Homer_Rice said:

Fathers and Sons. Sons and Fathers.

 

Sorry to hear about this, Go. Just remember that your Dad lives on within you. Sounds cliche, but it's true. Over the years I have spoken with others about this phenomenon and it turns out that this happens to a lot of us:

 

In the period after my father's death I used to have dreams about him. Then I would wake up and feel crushed. Yet, as time passed, I came to realize that it was a blessing when I had a dream with/about my Dad. I'd wake up and feel like I had just had a nice conversation with him, etc... . Doesn't replace the real thing, of course, but it helps.

 

Hang in there.

on a similar note, my sister and i are the strangest mix of both of our parents, i think most children mirror one parent more distinctly,  we both shadowed my mother, a few brain traits of my dad but it was all mother personality, etc. then she died in '09, and the last 10 plus years has been a heavy dose of dad, and it kind of evened us out to being a even mix of both. 

 

its a good mix, im so exhausted though, work has a 3 years build up of a company vital project that is due sept 11th, sorting dads stuff, the loss, the virus... im just fucking beat.

 

 

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I just now saw this. So sorry for your loss Ryan. Having lost both of my parents, I know there are no magic words to make it all better.

 

As harsh as this sounds, all you can do now is suck it up and do the things that are best for your wife and kids. Be the kind of man for them that your dad was for you. It's all about your family now. You're a good man, you'll get through it.

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