Chapter Two

Is going to be short.

See, we have four adults living in a small 2 bedroom condo at the moment. Sometimes 5. (me and my 3 sisters, and T, periodically). One of my sisters wakes up at the "crack of stupid", one gets up to pee/smoke approximately 3596 times per night, and the other is deaf in one ear and sleeps through it all.

I am the insomniac, who stays up until ungodly hours and sleeps in. Most of the time.

Yesterday and today were the first days since dad passed that I was up after 9am.

Crack of stupid sister is up at 4 or 5. Watching TV, working out. Smoking/peeing sister is, well, up and smoking or peeing all the time, but up for good about 6. Deaf sister is up by 7 or eight. This means that there are 3 women, up, drinking coffee, eating breakfast, watching Ellen, smoking and rifling around the condo by eight am at the latest.

This sounds totally humane unless you went to bed at about 3:30.

I shouldn't complain. Having them here, as stressful and aggravating as is can be, is nice. We haven't all been together in ten years.

All in all, I am handling dad's death better than I thought I would in a lot of ways, and really really poorly in others. He was the center of my attention for so long that without him here I feel kind of lost. I got so used to getting up every morning and him sitting in the kitchen, pouring him his coffee (two sugars!)and us reading the paper together before I went to work. I get up now, and he's not there. Just a blank spot--No one sits in the kitchen anymore. I don't have to worry about him anymore....But I miss him. The banter, the swearing, the laughing, the half-fighting sometimes....I worried about him constantly, and I worried about him up until the doctor pronounced him dead.

My voice was the only sound he would respond to.

His last words were spoken to me, and he was assuaging my worry. It was the most coherent thing he had said at all in hours, and the longest period of time he had been conscious. He knew I was there, he knew I gave a shit. He knew I was worried, but not that I was afraid.

Five minutes later, his heart stopped.

I didn't tell him I loved him.

I didn't say goodnight before he went to bed.

I did, however, tell him to go back to sleep. He told me he didn't hurt, no, not at all, but he was so sleepy. I told him it was ok, and to sleep.

He didn't wake up.

Now I am faced with the task of accepting my new life, a life lived for myself. The care of my parents is no longer my main priority (as much as my mother doesn't think so). The idea that I can finish college, get married, move, buy a car.....without once having to think "but what about my (insert responsibility here)"....totally weird. It's going to take time.

Just like getting used to the kitchen being empty. To reading the paper alone. It's just going to take time.