Upcoming Anniversary Date

Wow, has time passed by so quickly!  In two weeks it'll be one year since my Dad took his own life.  One year since my whole world changed.  One year since "I" changed.  I am not who I was a year ago before I lost him.  I can't help but wonder what it will be like once that day comes and what will come after it's over. 

I've been feeling a shift in the way I am again.  Thinking of Dad, feeling anxious and sad more than usual.  Ugh!!!!  Thanks a lot Dad!  My mom has felt it too.  The 'first' year is the hardest they say....soooo how will things be after that when it's the second, the third and so on?

It is crazy how much I think of him.  The worst is at night after the kids are in bed and I'm alone with my thoughts.

Since my last meeting with my alumni group for suicide survivors, I've decided that I'm going to give myself permission to attend one more meeting before taking a break.  I believe it will be on May 23rd, 2010.

The meetings are always nice as a way to check in and see how everyone is doing, but it's also painful, draining and depressing.  There are people there that lost their loved ones to suicide 40 to 25 years ago.  I don't want to be like them. 

I don't want to be sitting in a room with people I don't really know crying about how much I miss my dad.  I truly feel it's what I needed for this first year without him, but now it is time for me to move on and perhaps find other ways to approach getting through the rest of my life without him.

I just have this overwhelming feeling that given May is the anniversary month of his death, I will have given myself permission to grieve for a year.  Don't get me wrong, I will always be grieving, always missing him.  There has to be a time that the sadness, hopeless, depressed and confused feelings take a back seat to my everyday life.  There has to be a time that I get into the drivers seat of my own life and just deal with it.  I'm determined to not let his death break me as I know it has this past year.

It's affected my relationships with everyone, especially my kids.  I hope and pray they know how much I love them, but this has been damn hard. 

I have never in my life wanted to change something so bad.  For someone who people refer to as controlling, can you imagine the desperation I feel to want to control "this"???

These postings for example are depressing to me and I am usually reduced to sobbing uncontrollably because it brings everything to the surface. 

I don't want to live my life like that....like this.  I want to write about positive and fun things.  Like my children.  That always brings a smile to my face.  They are what lifts me up when I am down.  For the most part anyways.  It's all been so overwhelming.

Let's face it though...I am a single mom with four children under the age of 10 years old.  It's a lot of work.  I can't let my grief control me.

I saw a video on you tube a couple weeks ago pertaining to cancer (the link for it is at the end of this entry). It has various people who are clearly angry yelling at cancer.  Please take a look, as it has people looking at the camera or looking at themselves in the mirror yelling about how cancer has affected them and/or their loved ones.  I can totally see it pertaining to suicide as well and it was suggested as such by a suicide survivors group.  Very powerful video.  So hard though for any suicide survivor as I know we all feel so powerless.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=crXaLu9Ecmg