This Thursday my father will have brain surgery at Duke. It will be performed by the same surgeon who operated on mom. I'm trying to prepare, and I thought it would be easier. Having done this exact thing before one might think I have resources, lists, or at least strong memories. But I don't.
I have been going through old journals and paperwork for clues. I found this in a journal I kept the year after mom died:
"One thing they drive home--or you learn along the way--is that this is your new normal. It's not abstract, it's not a possibility, it's not something that happens to other people. And it does become normal. The comical, the painful, the bizarre become normal. And as quickly as it came, it's gone. Grief is the new normal, and the treatment is not nearly as simple. You're changed irrevocably. There is no cure, and there is no relief such as death. Grief is huge, suffocating, and stinging. After a while its edges are less sharp. Eventually there are thoughts, moments, when you wonder 'is this the grief? The thing that passes? Or is this who I am now?' The normal shifts, plates moving slowly under the surface. Months later, when you spontaneously begin sobbing--is that the grief? Or is this a thing now? Do I just cry like this every once in a while? Fold it into my day-to-day? The edges are fuzzy. Like the disease, I need grief to keep its form, to remain a solid mass, no matter how toxic."
What will it be like the second time?
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