I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I can no longer remember my dad walking. I know he did, because there are pictures. But I can’t actually remember any of those moments in time. I don’t remember much of the early parts of my life, as there was so much trauma. Many of those I have already come to terms with, but this one is different. This one I can’t seem to overcome. They say that you can’t heal from a trauma while you are in it. What if that trauma is your life? What do you do when the trauma is a disease that your dad was diagnosed with before you were even born? How does a person live their own life while watching someone they love slowly perish?
For the most part, I have just come to terms with this aspect of my life. There is nothing that I can do to stop the downward spiral that is Multiple Sclerosis. It’s just that at each turn, at each impasse, the emotional upheaval begins to take a toll. This last one hit me harder than the one before. My dad doesn’t know who I am half the time. He thinks I’m his sister, my aunt. We have conversations where I know he isn’t quite sure who the girl is sitting in front of him. Sometimes he remembers, and he apologizes, but there really isn’t anything to be sorry for. He can’t help that this disease is slowly eating away at his brain, his memories.
And I can’t help but feeling so lost in all of this, like no one really understands what this feels like. I didn’t have a normal father-daughter relationship growing up, although I’m not even sure if there is such a thing anymore. All I do know is that as time went on, and he got worse off, I was left lost and confused, jealous of all the other kids who had both parents being active participants in their lives. And I know he wanted to be there. He wanted to go to the dance recitals, the softball games, to teach me how to drive, to walk me down the aisle. He simply couldn’t.
I’m sad. And I hate talking about this stuff, because I don’t want anyone’s pity. I hate it when people ask me how he’s doing. Do you want the truth? Or are you just trying to sound like you care? Because when the conversation is over, you will move on with the rest of your life and I will still be here trying to swim through all the muck, swirling in the emotions that I try to keep at a distance. It’s also the way people look at me, like I’m a puppy who has lost its way. I really fucking hate that.
As I sit here, with tears streaming down my face, I know this pain will pass. The rainy days are temporary. I know that one day this will all be over, and I also know that I’m not ready to lose my dad yet. I do love him, and at the same time it just hurts so much to be around him. It feels like I’m being swallowed when I step into that house, the house I grew up in. It has never been a safe place for me. It probably never will be. So I steel myself for family dinners, for birthday parties, for holiday gatherings. I pretend like everything is okay when I’m falling apart inside, because my family doesn’t like to talk about things. I think it’s a part of the reason that I do talk about my problems so much. It’s the hiding, the discussions around privacy, that make us all believe that we are alone in the world.
We have the same emotions, suffer the same downfalls, they just look different for everyone. This is what mine looks like, and tomorrow it may look different. This is the reason I fight to find so much joy in my life, why I choose to put myself and life out there into the world. We are meant to heal in community, not suffer in silence thinking we are the only ones who could possibly be feeling this way. We all do. We all have hard days, and I know it will get better. The sun shining through is just a cloud away.
Mad love, Jenna
