Guilt
6:24 p.m. x February 26, 2004
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that there's too much death and sadness in February, for me at least. It seems almost as if everyday toward the end of the month, I can say "It's been ___ years since ______ died."
First, there was my grandma. She died in 1989, after a long battle with complications from diabetes. I didn't want to go see her toward the end because my whole family was bickering over dumb shit and it stressed me out. My mom wasn't too happy about it but she didn't force me.
Then, in 1992, there was my uncle. He died about the 22nd but laid in his house dead for 4 days. Prior to that happening, I didn't feel like riding all the way out to his house so I didn't, and hadn't seen him for a couple of months.
In 1997, my first stepmom died because she fucked up her brain really bad with alcohol. While I did see her and talk to her, I didn't go check on her when she was under my care, when she started hollering for my dad. She had been doing it for days anyway so it wasn't anything alarming, or so I thought. Turns out, she was basically saying her last words and she died under my watch. I don't think I could have saved her and it's probably better that nobody tried because she was pretty far gone, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it.
In 1999, my dad died of a supposed heart attack. I have my own opinions on that but that's not the point.
He had been in Rockford the week before and he passed up going to dinner with me on Valentine's Day because something was happening at the bar and he was going with my other uncle.
Well, the morning of the 15th, he called and asked if I wanted to come say goodbye before he flew back to New Mexico. I acted childish and told him I had plans with my friend. I don't even think I did, but my thoughts at the time were that I could be just as rotten to him as he was to me.
There was an urgency in his voice, and this sadness like he wanted to say goodbye to me really fucking bad but he wasn't going to tell his adult daughter that she had to do what he said.
The biggest difference in all of this is that my drunk father is the one that turned down dinner. The sober version was the one that wanted to say goodbye.
Anyway, this is something that plagues me every year around this time, or any other time of the year if you get me drunk enough to talk about it. There's this immense guilt because I acted like an immature idiot and refused to see him. I refuse to think that he deserved it. Two wrongs don't make a right and that frame of mind is what has left me feeling like a giant fuckhead for the last 5 years.
The night of the 21st, I had this really creepy feeling that something was going to happen to me. I mean, I'm always paranoid, but this was like some instinct or something telling me not to go to the gas station for newspapers. (I was in the process of moving.)
It turns out that the feeling I had wasn't about me at all. I sensed that my dad was dying, and didn't know it.
So, this time of year, guilt eats at me. No therapist or well meaning friend can give me sound advice to make it go away either. It fades into the background when the month is up, but eventually I'm bound to see a calendar and realize that the 21st, 22nd, 25th, and 26th are approaching. I've done a lot better with it all this year than I usually do. I don't mind that a lot of my family is dead. Well, I do but it's not like I'm in deep grief anymore.
Still, I didn't say goodbye to three of them and I just let the other one die. The one about my dad gets me the most, probably because he was my dad and I acted out of immaturity.
It's just really.... fucked up, and I need to figure out how to get over the guilt. Maybe after enough years and diary entries have passed, I can.