It was a day I will not forget until senility hits. My father died at 3 AM on May 11, 2001. I was there. But that's not what makes it the weirdest day ever. What makes it weird is the part that takes place after the moment he took his last breath.
We left the hospital five hours later (complications with Mom caused an ER visit right after we lost Dad) and drove home to Woonsocket, which is about a half hour drive from where Dad died. I remember vividly driving my car through the streets of Mitchell and looking at people in cars and on the sidewalk. They were normal. They were going on with their day, talking on phones, jamming to the music on their car stereos and laughing with their friends or family. It was surreal because my world had just received a major blow to it and I knew that I would never hear my dad's voice again nor fish with him nor talk to him face to face and these people didn't understand. They were living like nothing tragic had happened that day. I literally wanted to scream, "My dad just died! Don't you people care? Don't you understand that you are supposed to be sad and you're supposed to stop what you're doing and notice? He is dead!" Tears streamed down my cheeks as I drove the 30 miles home through the country of central SD.
It was this day that I believe I suddenly understood what it means when people say everyone is fighting a war within themselves daily. There was no logic to my wanting to scream---it was simply grief in its purest and rarest form. Those people weren't the issue. Death was the issue. My ache inside that I knew would never fully heal was the problem. And I definitely will always remember that day as the weirdest day ever because of this experience.
The reason this surfaced now is because a friend's mom died this morning. Young, like my dad. From cancer, like my dad. Surrounded by family, like my dad. And the only thing I could tell her was that today may be the weirdest day of your life...
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