Grief: Mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow.

 Les died.

It feels much different than I expected it to.  Actually, I'm not really sure I had expectations.  All I know is that it hurts more than I expected it too.

Les has been telling us for 3 years that he is going to die at any minute.  He lives with us, and likes to talk to himself (loudly) so I've heard his feelings.  He's sad.  He doesn't feel good.  He has nothing to look forward to.  He's tired.  He misses Janet.  I've heard him cry.  I've heard him get mad.  I've heard him praying.  I've heard him pray for his kids and my kids.  I've heard him pray for me and Sam by name.  It's a very humbling feeling to hear your dad pray for you when he doesn't know that you can hear him.

Les has been sick for a couple of months.  He's complained about his stomach hurting. A couple of weeks ago, he went to the doctor and when he went to get off the exam table, he hurt his back.  We thought it was a strained muscle, or that he'd put his back out.  It got worse over a week and last Tuesday, he asked Jared to take him to the emergency room.  They ran some tests and found a "large mass" in his stomach.  It wasn't obvious cancer.  They needed to run more tests to find out for sure, but either way, we were told that because of the issues that it was causing, he probably had a week or two left.  They planned to move him to hospice as soon as a room opened up.

The boys and I went to the hospital a few times to visit.  Friday, Jacob and I went to see how he was doing.  Besides being in a hospital bed with an oxygen tube up his nose, he seemed like his normal self.  We chatted and laughed.  Saturday morning, the hospital called Jared to tell him that Les was unconscious and they didn't expect him to wake up again, but that he could be like that for several days so they were still hoping to transfer him to hospice.

Jacob's only experience with death was with Janet.  She was in hospice for weeks and when she went unconscious, she stayed that way for a week before she died.  I told Jacob that grandpa was unconscious, but we could still see him and Jacob asked to go right then.  I told him we could go in a few minutes.  He was sitting out in the car waiting for me when Jared texted to let us know that grandpa had died.

It's confusing to feel both joy and grief at the same time.  It's confusing to feel relief and guilt.  It's confusing to feel like our world has changed and at the same time, the world keeps moving on.  It's weird to be excited to have our basement back, and also feel sad that Les isn't in the basement anymore.  We've had family here for most of the weekend and Sam's sisters will be here all week.  It's nice to have them here but I also am anxious for things to just be back to normal.

I don't know how to process these kinds of contradictory feelings.

Last night a person who I've felt enormous amounts of hate and judgment from over the last 6 months, came over with her parents.  Having her witness the vulnerability of my grief was agonizing and humiliating.  I also felt anger.  The day I found out that Les was going to die, was hard.  Obviously.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted.  When Michael asked to go hang out with girlfriend, I told him that I needed him home by 9pm.  I didn't have the physical or mental capacity to stay up until midnight.  Michael didn't tell girlfriend what was going on.  I'm not sure why.  I think he just wanted to pretend it wasn't happening.  Instead, he just told her that he couldn't hang out.  I guess that was the last night she was going to have time to hang out with Michael before she left on a trip and he left on his mission, so she just immediately assumed that my asking Michael to be home early was an evil conspiracy to ruin her life.  Also, she somehow found out that Les had died and before I had a chance to tell Michael, SHE was the one that told hem that his grandpa had died.  

I'm angry because whether she meant to be hurtful or not, she was.  Giving Michael that news before me was disrespectful, and at the very least, I deserve her to acknowledge that to me.  The good news is that this was the last straw for me with her.  I'm done.

Obviously, there have been lots of feelings over the last week and today everything imploded.   I'm tired but I'm the kind of tired that doesn't go away with sleep.  It's emotional, mental exhaustion that only goes away with time.