3 years, 8 months, and 3 days

[JaimeM]

It's been 3 years, 8 months, and 3 days since my father died.  There is never a day that I don't think about him, and for a while, I've been coping well, but all of a sudden, in the past week or so, I've been overwhelmed with loneliness.  I thought that by now, I would be ok.

 

My mother has been out of the picture since I was 8, my dad raised me.  He saved me from an alcoholic and mentally unstable mother and has been my best fried and closest confidant for my entire life.  He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on my son's 5th birthday in 2010, and died 2 months and 10 days later.  He moved in with me right after he was diagnosed and I have a huge sense of guilt for not being able to take better care of him.  My stepmother (his wife of 25 years) did nothing to help when he was alive and threatened to sue me for the insurance money 2 weeks after he passed.  My stepsister, who I was close to sided with her mother, and I have not spoken to either of them since. Basically,  I lost almost everyone in my immediate family (other than my husband, son, and brother) in one fell swoop. To make matters worse, I found out that I was pregnant about 2 days after he died, and I had an abortion 2 weeks later.  He would not have been proud of that at all.  The only reason that I am even alive is because he would not allow my mother to abort me.

 

My father was the only person who truly listened to me without judgment or boredom. He was the person I turned to for advice when I had decisions to make, and I always knew that no matter what, he had my best interests at heart.  He was my voice of reason and clarity, and I feel completely lost without him. I have intense anxiety about stupid things now...did I say the wrong thing at work, what do people think of me...etc...  He would have known exactly what to say to make me realize that I was stressing about ridiculous things, and now he is gone.  More than that, I never dream about him.  I pray every night that he will come to me in  a dream, or that I will feel his presence, and I just don't.  I don't have a strong belief in afterlife, but I wish I did.  I so want him to be here in some form.  I want to believe that, but I just don't feel it.  Living without him is so intensely painful and I feel like the loss is suffocating me.

 

When is it going to get easier?