OK, OK. Now I'm Ready.

Grief does crazy things to crazy people. Now that I'm ready to talk about how my dad's Death-by-Pirates makes me feel, I want to remind you that not everyone handles loss in the same way.

The week before the pirates actually killed my father, my mom, sister, aunt, brother and uncle and I all took turns laying in bed with him, sitting next to him and holding his hand while he struggled to speak, and at last, breathe. The following week I watched as my brother and sister's kids alternated between hysterically sobbing and playing games with one another as if nothing had changed. Watching my 5 youngest nieces and nephews cry and laugh and play and run, I finally understood that loosing my dad meant one thing: I want to trip my brother's kids.

Now, now. Before Brother and Brother's Wife get all upset, let me just say, I want to trip my sister's kids too. Next time any of them run by I want to stick out my foot, or an elderly relative's cane or move a chair leg in their path and I want them to fall. And when the are splayed out on the ground looking around in disbelief, just before they start to cry, I want to throw my arms out to my sides in a "T" formation and yell "Safe!" or point my thumb behind me and yell "Yourrrrr ouuuut!" or do jazz hands and say "Ta-dah!" or just hold up a big card that reads "9.6."

Why? Why would I do that? Because I'm mad as hell. Not at them, not at my siblings, and not because I will never have my daddy back. I am angry because this isn't fricken fair. All these kids got to know what it is like to have the best PawPaw in the world and my kids never will. My kids will never know how perfect a person he was, and they will  have to settle for learning his hand-me-down lessons from a highly imperfect daughter. My unborn kids will have to trust their father and I and all the rest of us who are left when we tell them the tales of this larger than life man, this giant, this demigod. And honestly, if I ever heard the stories we tell about how genius and unbelievably selfless my dad was, I would assume they were mostly exaggeration and hero worship.

For the record, I did not clothesline any children at my dad's memorial service last night. Though I badly wanted to. And there were plenty of kids running about, just askin' for it. I'm pretty sure my dad wouldn't have tripped a child if he were upset about something, but I know he would have laughed about it. Indeed.