Written on December 14, 2024 : Monday marks 23 years since my dad’s mother, Grace, passed away at age 92. I’ve thought of her and prayed to her a lot- more than usual anyways- over the last two months.
Thursday Dec 5 I had to leave my dad’s hospice center to drive my son up north and tend to some of my largely neglected personal and professional life. My dad was stable and alert and the goodbye was one that brought bile into my throat, knowing it was the last time my boy would hug his beloved Papa goodbye.
On my drive back down this past Wednesday I realized that my mind was aware this was my final drive down to see my dad alive. The idea of this thought process really bent my mind in ways never before experienced. Dad was somewhat lucid when I arrived that afternoon, I’m grateful for those few hours with him alert. Since then he has crossed over in to his final phase of life- the active dying phase. Since my arrival I’ve noticed my mind wondering… Will this be the last sunset I see while my dad is still alive? Is this the last moon rise I will witness while my dad is still here? Is today the day that will for the rest of my life be the anniversary of my father’s death? Honestly, how is our brain designed to be able to think these thoughts and to also process the realities of them coming to fruition? The mind fuckery of it all is real.
The day after we moved my dad into this beautiful facility, just two weeks ago, we had a family of deer walk by outside his window, a mama, a young doe, a young buck and a large buck- interesting that the bucks were with the does. They were hard for my dad to see, camouflaged against a frames swatch of dense forest. Over the next week, a man and a machine came in and clear cut all the trees besides a few- my dad doing research into why discovered that the city was going to restore it to a wetland… but the beautiful privacy of the forest and the home to our deer friends disappeared before our eyes. Much like my world has been stripped bare over the last two months, the last year… the last four years really. It makes me curious as to what all this loss, destruction, all this death is clearing space for in my life….
1/13/25
My Fathertook his last breath on December 15, 2024 at 8:37 AM, as I was in the process of writing this post. Now, a month later, I am just starting to revisit and reflect on the entirety and enormity of 2024 for me. You can read what I wrote about his death here. A year of great loss - my marriage began its long overdue descent to an end, and with that my business went took a massive hit, I lost the house I built and called home, my studio, my income security, my best friend, and time with my father, who was dying rapidly unbeknownst to me. I was thrown from one type of Fight or Flight in to an entire new dimension of sympathetic nervous system dysfunction. I took on 3 jobs, worked way too much, and scrambled to find a foothold, which I never really did. In October, I lost my dog of 14 years the same week my father told me of his terminal diagnosis with Stomach Cancer. I abandoned my responsibilities and work and spent as much time as I possibly could with him over the next two months while he withered away. I returned home to uncover behind the scenes while I held my father’s hand as he died I had been double betrayed, most of what I had been relaying on for comfort now was clearly a lie.
I am not one to really share the depths of what I am going through while I am processing, until I’ve navigated some of the healing and gleaned some lessons from the harshness of life. So I will end this writing here. But once I have resurfaced from the muck and mud, I will share more of my story and how I made it back from the dark.
No mud, no lotus.
Wishing you all a 2025 that is full of healing, empowerment, stepping in to who the fuck you really are, and finding love for your self that is so powerful that you are unshakeable.
Love you. Hilary