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A lamp fell on my head today, a 6ft. antique type with a hard glass cover. The glass didn’t break, but my head is still spinning, dizzy, ice bag, advil. I was in a small room getting ready for a lesson. I was reading my notes and suddenly felt the impact, it almost knocked me unconscious. Someone walked by the lamp and knocked it down and it hit me on the back of my head.

This stinks.

And I had just returned from UCI Neurological center and the cemetery. I feel like I’m headed back there as a patient this time! I was there remembering abuelita, her time at the hospital, just getting in touch with some of the grieving I’ve been going through. That was hard enough and now this.

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I was actually feeling thankful about my time at the cemetery and spending time at my grandmother’s grave. That was my first time seeing the marker with her name on it (I had been to the cemetery before). I cried as I wiped her name with my hand over and over again. I could have been there for hours, I stayed for about 20mns. At times I felt disconnected, “she’s not here”, “this was just a moment in her life”, “she’s not here”…Other times, I broke down and could picture the rain, the yellow rain coats, the gray casket, the flowers, the people wearing black, the heavy rain pouring down, my mom crying, the mechanism they use to lower the casket into the ground especially on rainy days, the whole thing was so real. Then it would all go away.

Grieving is such. “Please be patient with me, I’m a grieving person” says the button I wore for 2-3 months after my father died 5 years ago and then again for abuelita. That’s so true. The date on her marker reminded me she was gone, March 4, 1926 – Jan 3rd 2005, she was almost 80 years old.

“seventy, or eighty if you’re strong…” My gramma was strong.

I remember every detail of that day and of the 10 days she spent at the hospital. While at UCI Medical Center I went to the 4th floor where she was in a comma and died. The smells, the phones on the walls, the waiting area, “I Love Lucy” on the TV, families sleeping in the lobby from exhaustion, the children, the guards giving out VISITOR passes, the parking lot, the road leading to the ER, the bathroom where I cried almost every day, the waiting room where we decided to take abuelita off life support (toughest moment of my life), the conference room where the neurosurgeon told us how (why) things went wrong during the surgeries. It was all there. I was hoping to see a doctor or nurse I recognized but no luck. I actually forgot the surgeon’s name. The lady at the information desk was still there. Everything was so real again, even though the lobby looked a bit different from some remodeling. Why did I go? I like to have moments where I face the sadness inside. I went to grieve. I could feel my muscles tensing up the moment I walked in, I actually felt dizzy once or twice while there, I was also hungry so it was a combination of things. I had told my wife and a few friends where I was going, just so they knew.

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I was hoping to come home, lift, spend a good afternoon with my wife and children. Instead, I’m feeling somewhat shaken up by the day’s events. Crazy. Needless to say it’s messing with my head both physically and emotionally.

Have a great day.

Into the future,

davidT