dyingtolive's Journal

it's almost 9:00, and i just woke up. it's raining and ugly out. i decided last night that i'd go to the cemetery today and see my dad. i asked a friend to come with me, because last time i went alone and i think going with a friend will make me feel a little bit better.

i always dread these days. i don't even know how i find it in me to get out of my car and walk to that building, because as soon as i even park, all those memories of that day - of the wake, the funeral, and the days before - just come rushing back into my head. i get these quick little flashes of the night that i found out. i was in my room at school and my mom and my stepdad called, asking me to come home, without telling me the truth right away. she told me he was at the hospital because he was having trouble breathing, so i left school with patrick immediately, thinking we'd go straight there. i remember walking into my house to see my aunt, my uncles, my two cousins, and my grandpa there with my mom and stepdad. i remember the looks on their faces when i walked in. i remember being told and my knees giving out and crying and screaming. i remember waiting for my brother to come home. he was down at the state police academy, and my mom called to have them send him up. she didn't tell him until he got home. i remember being upstairs and hearing him cry downstairs. it was the first time in my life i had ever heard him cry that way. i remember it all as if it happened yesterday. my friends and my family tell me to talk about it, about what i'm feeling. it's so difficult to have to face these things. i don't talk because i don't want to revisit that spot in my mind. i don't want those things to replay in my head for me the way they do. when i get those little flashes, my heart races and i cry instantly - instantly, but quietly, because i don't want anyone to see me or hear me. i keep quiet until i can focus again. i just want consistency. 

next thursday, three months will have passed since that day. three months. my days go by so quickly, but there's a big part of me that slugs through them purposefully, maybe in hopes of staying as close to the years before march of this year as i can.

i'm going to get ready to leave now. wish me luck.