The
wilderness. It’s an unknown place that’s daunting and you struggle to
comprehend how to make it out of this hellscape if you just so happen to be in
the middle of it. The wilderness is something that I have been personally stuck
in for the last eight years of my life. My grief has been so complex and it’s
truly taken such a toll on my heart and soul. This is my wilderness. This is my
journey.
My brother was an addict. He was in and out of jail for what seems like two decades. This was also the same person that had a reputation of being kindhearted and also giving the very little he had to someone who had less than he. He died in a bathroom of an aneurysm. I will always believe that he took a hit and went down just as our cousin did years earlier. Jason, who I called my second brother who also died of an overdose. Speedball. I loved them both. When I found out about my brother I was in shock. I remember my mom falling to the floor in disbelief and my father having to pick her up telling her to stay with him. I didn’t know it yet but I was pregnant during this. I cried over and over and the song “Trouble” by Coldplay wouldn’t leave my mind. Maybe a sign from my brother? But it hit hard. I found out I was pregnant and I was in complete shock still processing my brother’s death. He was going to be an Uncle and left. He was incredible with children and wanted them so much but never could have them. I remember one night seeing a message blinking on the home phone answering machine and thought it was unusual as no one called. I pushed play and my mom and I started crying as he heard in his voice “ Kevin”
It gave me comfort knowing that he was
still there. I had a dream of him not long after coming in through the front
door greeting me in the kitchen looking so healed and so healthy with a
beautiful smile surrounded by a bright white light. He said, “Sister, I am
perfect now.” As we hugged. I woke up crying knowing he was indeed perfect in
Heaven. A month later my Grandad who meant the world to me was in the hospital.
I didn’t think for one minute that anything could go wrong. This was the same
grandfather who told me months earlier, “Darlin’ you’ll have me and I’ll always
be here especially if something happens to your dad.” My grandad deteriorated
and was in Hospice care within the next month. I lost my grandad in January. My
dad was absolutely devastated, and I was too and for whatever reason struggling
so much emotionally. I was processing my grandad dying in the middle of still
thinking my brother was never coming back. I was steadily getting more and more
pregnant trying to focus on my baby while grieving. My father. My dad had been
battling stage 4 lung cancer for 5 years. At this point in the middle of all
the loss there was my father, the rock. March 28th, 2017 I was
sitting on my floor straitening my hair with my bedroom window open. The wind blew through my room as the clouds shadowed
over the sun and I had the most eerie feeling of my life sitting there. I immediately
got up off the floor and ran to my Dad’s room. He was sitting up on the edge of
his bed looking into the mirror. I sat beside him and told him what I just felt
and he said, “Nothing can hurt us because we have God. Don’t be scared.” I woke
up that next morning to see my dad writhing in pain. He managed to speak “Water”
to me and I ran to grab him some nervous and shaking. I yelled for my mother
and we immediately made that call for the ambulance to come get him. I held my
growing belly silently praying this was just a respiratory shutdown like he had
a year or so prior that he pulled through. When I got to the hospital I was
greeted with concerned faces. My father was being transferred almost
immediately to hospice. “No.” In my mind just so many no’s. Not my best friend.
I just threw my purse down and sat there next to him in the emergency room
fending off requests to go home to decompress for my pregnancy. When they
arrived to pick him up to get him to hospice, I went home to eat a cracker. A
single cracker is all I could even stand. I started talking to my baby in my
belly. “Be strong for me. It’s going to be really really hard and you’re about
to feel Mommy lose it. Stay strong, little one.” I drove up to hospice and sat in the chair
next to my dad and held his hand. I wasn’t moving. EVER. If I rot in that chair for days, I would. I’m
not leaving him when he needs me the most. It wasn’t a few hours later I
started noticing my dad’s hand turning blue. I started watching his adams apple
and his breathing growing shallower. My dad sat up, looked right at me, and
started purging black fluid. All while I
still was holding his hand. I immediately jumped up and my Uncle (his brother)
and cousin were in shock with me. I ran screaming down the hallway at Hospice, “My
dad’s sick! Help him!” The doctor came out of his room and told me to
immediately sit down. “You have a baby and I need you to remain as calm as you
can. Sweetheart, your dad has passed on.” “NO!” I bursted into tears. He died
in that moment when he looked at me as I held his hand. That moment deeply
affected me. My dad was my best friend. He was my hero. I had to lose him on
top of my brother and grandfather all in a six-month period of time and I have
this baby growing inside of me. On top of that, I must worry about my poor Mom.
I can’t imagine how much her world has crumbled. Somehow my mind can’t escape
seeing the way my father died and how he didn’t deserve that. Of all the ways
to go, why did he have to go that way? He didn’t deserve it. He’s not going to
see his grandson. I’m not safe anymore. What the hell do I do now?
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