relief because i'm glad it's over

regret because i could have known him better

grief because i know he thought of me and loved me in his way, and would have been proud of me no matter what

because if he knew he was dying as it happened, i may have been the last thing on his mind

a lot of my memories of him are of him being a shitty person but i figure he was suffering too

at least he's free now of whatever pain he had

and i hope he was able to find some happiness and peace while he was alive too

i hope he was able to become a better person

there is a lot i don't know. like what did he do for 20 years? who did he interact with? what was his life like?

wild because my grandpa died around this time last year too

thinking about how my dad signed me up for ballet as a kid and i didn't enjoy it at the time but i appreciated it down the road

not saying i wouldn't be dancing today if it wasn't for him because i probably still would be, but that he created a ripple in the world that is still reverberating. so in a way, dancing holds a connection to him

i think he put a lot of bad waves into the world but dancing can be a good one, something to carry on and amplify

trying not to fall into a pit of horror / disgust / despair over the thought that underneath it all we're just decaying matter in denial about it and so what's the point of anything

decay isn't inherently bad or frightening, it's a state of being like any other and a reflection of the constant state of change of the universe

i don't want to feel afraid or disgusted. i want to flow like water and find a state of grace with life and death and the universe and all it is

i am imagining looking at a person and seeing everything they have ever been and ever will be. them as a child and as an old person, as a zygote and as a corpse, as stardust and stardust, every configuration their atoms will ever go through, none superior or inferior than any other

saw pictures of ruth w her newborn niece and it struck me how some of us are arriving and some of us are leaving and most of us are in the middle and isn't this astonishing and devastating and beautiful, doesn't this just knock you flat with grief and awe

maybe death and decay are just third puberty. like puberty, they're kind of gross and awkward and confusing but they're a process of growing into another form. this time it's just maybe a more cosmic form, one that's more atomically integrated with the matter around it

i signed up to witness his cremation. the two of us spent so much of our lives absent from each others' that i want to be present now. i want to see and experience as much as i can. i don't want to flinch away because i feel like that would make things worse for me. i want to lean in and be present and unafraid

tracked down his last address and no one answered when i knocked. i saw one of his neighbors sitting outside her house so i asked if she knew anything about the people living next door, and it turns out she'd known my dad after all. she went over and introduced me to my dad's roommates. here is what i learned from talking to his roommates:

he was stoic. he never mentioned me or my mother. he never married again. when asked if he had children he was silent. however, he did talk a lot about his various brothers and his phd studies and science. his roommates described him as "a genius."

his neighbor lisa said he was "odd." johnny said he was very kind and had "a heart of gold." he would offer to mop the floor even after he'd just mopped it. gary said he loved cats.

he didn't eat meat but cooked a lot, especially noodles. he drank boiling water straight, unbothered. he drank a lot of liquor too but denied it. he took the bottles out to the trash in a plastic bag and johnny would hear them clinking. apparently there was an almost empty bottle in the room with him when he died?

he worked as a dishwasher. first it was at a restaurant next door for a couple of years and then he was apparently wrongfully terminated. he hired a lawyer and got a settlement. afterward he worked at a restaurant across town and it would take 3 buses to get there. his commute was hours long.

when he wasn't working he pretty much just stayed in his room. he would look at his tablet. sometimes he would sit in the yard outside. he didn't really seem to have hobbies or be involved in any activities or groups.

before he died he apparently had a stroke? everyone told him to go to the hospital but he didn't. so i figure he died of a second stroke. his roommates said they didn't hear him cry out or make any noise, so he might have gone in his sleep. johnny thinks alcohol was involved.

i wonder too about why he only weighed 97 lbs when he died. it'd be concerning if i weighed 97 lbs. no healthy adult man of average height is supposed to weigh that little, so clearly his health wasn't good. i wonder what kinds of (probably undiagnosed) physical issues he might have had that caused him to lose so much weight.

struck yet again by the unexpected kindness of people during some of the hardest times i've ever been through. see: the hospital employees, the funeral counselor, the neighbor, the roommates. it's made everything so much easier.

skimmed through some of his papers and a lot pertained to mental health treatment, which is honestly very validating. like i know where it comes from now! i'm not bad or weak for being crazy, i literally just got unlucky with genetics! wild too because i found a list of his meds and i was like holy shit i've been on some of these

went to rehearsal afterward and decided to be gutsy and ask for a group hug. i literally told the room about my dad dying and how i'd been at the funeral home and his house getting all his arrangements and possessions sorted out, and then we all sat in a Clump(tm) and hugged!! it ruled.

(writing this down even though it's embarrassing because i want to remember: the way c scooted in and touched my ankle and then sort of sat back and laid on me. the pressure of his body. how i touched my face to the top of his head, the feeling of his hair and the smell of his shampoo)

afterward, spilling more of my guts to the group about being depressed af and in the hospital and having a brain injury and how things were just getting better before i got hit with that half orphan status lol but yeah i feel like i have been so fucking brave lately

called the behavioral health clinic to inform them of the death and they said he'd been receiving services there for a long time, which is good because it implies a sense of commitment and insight

ok i thought before he was just depressed but according to his mental health records he also had paranoid schizophrenia? damn ngl that's kinda heavy. not only that, but he was in court ordered treatment for a number of years and every year he'd petition to get released from treatment and every year he'd get denied because of having poor insight and not believing he had a problem. so it turns out he was going to the clinic all that time because he had to and not because he wanted to

ngl i don't wanna inherit schizophrenia because i already inherited depression. i looked it up and it seems like if i can make it to about 35 and stay attached to reality the whole time i will probably be out of the woods. so all i gotta do is stay attached to reality for the next 5 years

ok so i did some more reading and apparently about 1 in 5 schizophrenia cases develop in middle age or later. so i will never really be out of the woods. this will hang over me for the rest of my life.

i was afraid for a while of losing touch with reality and it sucks to have that fear validated in this way. i don't want to lose my lucidity, or be dependent, or be sick in a way that causes a burden or pain to other people

but i also don't feel that fixating on the worst case scenario, which is not guaranteed to happen, will do much other than cause me unnecessary suffering in the present

each day that i spend connected to reality i never want to take for granted

things that help: writing things down (keeping separate notes for recording / processing thoughts and emotions vs. tracking logistics), staying on sertraline, having the cat around, staying connected to people (talking openly about struggles, making the effort to physically be around people)

talked to harold on the phone. he didn't know my dad well and maybe only met him once. because his parents invested in jim's business when it was starting up, jim was sending christmas cards and money orders to repay the investment (at least $11,600 based on records left behind). which i feel reflects positively on him since he was committed to repaying his debts? harold wasn't aware of the schizophrenia diagnosis and didn't go into science so wouldn't know about any of the scientific equipment left behind

gary the front end manager at union public house said jim was a good worker and adept at keeping it together when things got busy, that nobody seemed to have any beef with him that he knew of, that jim made an effort to respond to people despite the language barrier, and that he was "a joy to be around"

he had a lot of meds left over so i took half an olanzapine to see what it was like. bruh. shit was stupid rough. for two days i averaged ~12 hours of sleep a night and slept 2-3 more hours while on the clock. i was way too fucking tired to function. if this is what i have to look forward to, this is grim af.

in other news, Dance Clump became the starting pose for the modern piece! writing this down even though it's embarrassing: how c got placed behind me in the formation so that when we went into Clump mode i lay on my side and he draped his torso over me. again and again, feeling his weight. the lyricism of closeness. i'm a cringy sappy bitch but fuck it i'm alive and still capable of joy

spilling more of my guts after rehearsal to c and c about witnessing the cremation soon. having a convo about death being a pain in the ass and my fear of inheriting schizophrenia. group hugging at the end

saw his body at the crematory and it wasn't that gnarly. if anything, he looked like something ready to be released. also pretty dehydrated? but that's death for ya. noticing the wrinkles by his mouth and eyes. struck by the way not much of his hair had gone gray yet. i thought he would look older. struck by how someone had drawn a smiling heart with eyes closed on the box

some things he did aren't in my place to forgive but i think in the end things more or less turned out okay despite the damage he dealt. and i turned out okay.

feeling terribly sorry that his life didn't turn out the way he'd probably hoped, that he could've had a successful career and contributed to society as a scientist but his demons were too strong. it really seemed like he saw getting his phd as the peak of his life. i wish things could have turned out better for him.

still though, it seemed like he was trying up until the end to get a job in his field. so that counts for something. i hope he found moments of peace and happiness even with the demons.

plus he helped bring me into existence. which on the whole i am trying and learning to appreciate more. i think i am someone he would be proud to be a parent of.

brought his phd diploma and a copy of moon crumbs to be burned with him. stood by him and read out "mary's peak sunset" and "how are you?" cried a lot more than i thought i would.

watching the body being loaded into the machine and the door closing. thinking "bon voyage / safe travels / rest well."

chatting with the cremationist afterward and learning more about how the cremation machine worked (the flames actually come down from above) and how he got into the business. seeing the heat waves from the chimney. the playful army salute we exchanged as i left

the heartbreakingly adorable kittens at the cat lounge sleeping in a pile. petting them and thinking "have a nice life, you beautiful creatures"

a tiny lock on the ground that had the word blossom engraved on it

funny how i've become much less of a misanthrope since my dad died. i've had to make so many calls and take care of so much stuff and people have consistently been surprisingly nice to me? maybe human kindness isn't dead after all. shook

letting go of a lot of the anger i held toward my dad has also let me take a more charitable view toward humans in general. like maybe the vast majority of human shittiness is rooted in ignorance, pain, fear, and a lack of empathy / understanding / connection rather than the shittiness being inherent

seeing how isolated my dad seemed to be near the end has also taught me to strive for connection to as many people as i can. like if i am on the fence about connecting, i should go for it

found out new info from his former boss which is that his stroke happened not a week before he died as i was previously led to believe, but as many as 6 months prior? still, he never went to the hospital as he expressed a desire to wait a couple months until he had insurance. his speech and cognitive state declined over time, and near the end others could barely understand him. he would also miss days and show up on other days when he wasn't scheduled

which is all upsetting to find out and to realize he was a victim of the fucked up us healthcare system and also of his own obstinacy

ate at the restaurant where he worked n started dissociating thinking about if there was anything i could have done to prevent his death. like i know it's not my fault he died but part of me still thinks i could have somehow been more proactive. like i could have rebuilt my relationship with him sooner, and i could have helped cover his medical bills, and i could have been someone more meaningful in his life, and i could have helped him be a better person, and if all this happened would he still be alive? bad spiral to go down

spent a long time at the bank closing his accounts and going through the official process of inheriting his money. feeling weirdly guilty about it even though two of the accounts were pod in my name and the last one i was the beneficiary for. somehow i still feel like i just stole all the money of a man in poverty. it doesn't make any sense. this is literally what he wanted. and yet the guilt persists. it is ok to feel it. it is ok.