Their gone.

No.  Not dead people.

The people that I reside with.  They are gone.  Vacated.

The house is completely empty.

I can hear the voices in my head again!

I use to not want them to go.  Not because of the voices, no, not all of them.  Because of the worst voice.  Fear. "What if something happens? What if they don't come back? What if there's an accident."  Oh, What-if.  You are the worst of all the voices.

The thing is...they don't work.  What-if will put a billion thoughts in your head, and the one that will happen will always be the least obvious or the one that never occurred could even be in his deck.  That's the one that gets played.  And it will lead to What-if changing his voice, and your defenses are up, so you totally bat them away.  Then those come true.  All of them.  Back to back.  They seem little next to the big one that started his hand, but when you step back, they are on a see-saw battling for insanity.  And eventually all the little minions of What-if and What-if himself get start talking and realize that balancing themselves will really do you in.  So they stop their teeter-totter slowly.  Eventually, they have suspended themselves in midair.  The leader with a maniacal grin.  The minions with their tiny piercing giggles, holding their feet in the air and trying not to breath too much.  It works.  You drive, insane head first into pit of despair and hopelessness.  You question everything you knew.  Past tense.  Everything is past tense.  It was only a matter of time when it all will be past tense.

Lucky for you.  If you can withstand the darkness.  (Walk in circles.  Hum an angry tune.  Stare in the distance and believe in it,)  They will lose their balance.  Your left brain and right brain will not be numb to each other.  They will function.  At low synapses but still function. You will be able to stop the circle, the humming, the staring for longer interludes.  And when Whatif comes back to taunt you about all he can gain.  You remember it doesn't matter.   You tie the string on your pinky to ensure it remains attached to the now.  The now will not escape into the past or into the future.  You will hold it with your tiny little pinky and always remember that no matter who leaves, you will remain.

I get it.

I believe one of the worst parts is that I get it.  I'm not anger like my aunt is that they didn't do more or tell us more about her cancer.  If they had, it would have only prolonged her life to be worse.  Not better.  I'm not even someone who wishes she had been longer.  I don't wish any of them could have been here longer.  I see that my mom was sad without my dad.  She would have kept going, and when they told her the end would quicker than she wanted, she didn't want to go.  not even to see my brother.  She looked to the heavens. and said, "I'm sorry, John, I love you, but...", I believe she said, "I'm not ready to see you yet."  She got ready quick.  I think she was worried about me.  She hadn't let on to this yet.  I'm not sure why.  She mostly talked about how it would effect the kids.  But now, when it came down to it, she told me that she worried for me.  The kids had me to see them through, but I had no one.  And that's the worst.  The worst part about having amazing parents and a brother that loved me, is that when they leave you, they leave this gaping hole.  So when it comes time to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, as the old people say, it's tricky.  I mean I get it but it's tricky, I tell you.

Grief is Grey

I find one of the weirdest things is how different it feels.  I mean grief is grief.  It sucks.  But sometimes it blows instead.  You know?

With my dad, it felt like something was standing right in front me not able to see on the other side.  It would block my view and blur my vision.  It would exhaust me just from it's presence.  It would tilt the room and penetrate the air.  It would come so close, my eyes wouldn't work.  I would bend over trying to catch my breathe and stop the world from spinning and fix my eyes on something so the blurriness would go away.  And then I would feel the room stop spinning and remind myself what it looked like before all the madness.  I would start to straighten up, and then "Wham!"  Pop in the stomach again.  Forced to double over this time.  And then it just seemed obvious to walk around, holding, no, protecting my stomach.  Glaring at everyone that approached me.  Analyzing their faces and the knowledge I had of them to access the situation.  Would they know what I was going through.  Or did their attempts at empathy become only self serving.  After blows to the gut, everyone becomes the enemy.  Because really, how could something so large in mass and personality just vanish.  The only thing tangible are blows we keep feeling.

Months later when the ground stops shaking and you don't have to steady yourself just to get out of bed, you start making plans for the future.  And the plans include Mom now.  Because without Dad, Mom will go anywhere to be closer to her grand-babies.  You make plans until one night while brushing their teeth, she calls and asks you if you are sitting down.  You laugh, thinking she's joking.  You talk all the time.  She knows your husband is working late and you are trying to wrestle your children into bed.  So when you slip out a no with a smile on your face, she continues anyway.  "It's cancer, Cassandra."  She says it in her nurse voice that's serious and strong and matter-of-fact.  You abandon your children and their teeth.  You whisper something that allows them to stay up a while longer and be quiet at the same time.  Maybe "books with the lights on til dad gets home" or something equally as nullifying. You go to the dining room.  Sit at the table they gave you.  Ask the stupid questions you will curse people for uttering in a day.

"How long did they give you?"
"Where is it?" "Where did it come from?"
"What's the plan?"

Some answers you eventually get.  Some they never end up having.  That seems to be how cancer sometimes rolls.  Or is it how God rolls.  I am not sure which.

But when she left, it seemed to take forever and at the same time, too quickly.  It left me in the depth of darkness.  Darkness I had never imagined and faulted others for being in.  Two weeks I sat at the bottom of that pit.  No sweeping blows to the gut.  No room spinning.  No one to hold your hand while you steadied yourself.  Everyone seemed to feel her absence differently.  Personally.  And I was left at the bottom of the pit while others soaked in the glow of her life.

Now I sit at the edge.  I'm out.  But my legs dangle there from the side.  Swaying back in forth from the shadow of the pit to the light of the Son.  I no longer see in black and white, but everything is grey.