My name is Andrew, I am really sorry for how long this post is... I just have no idea how to process all of this.
My father passed away a few months ago. I'm 26, an only child, and very much just getting started with my adult life. I still live at home and have very little in terms of accomplishments, something I always wanted my father to see me achieve. A level of success he could be proud of, a family, a home... but I guess I took too long to even start, any of it. I certainly didn't try hard enough.
I went to my fathers house at the behest of his wife, he had been ill complaining of rails but refused to go to a doctor or an ER, I found a locked house with no one responding to my knocks. Further compounding matters the old spare key I had broke when I tried to turn the deadbolt (the house shifts from season to season making it hard to do.) I was remiss to break a window, as then I had no idea what lay-in-wait inside, I went home, and about an hour later returned with needle-nose pliers, and a friend who could help me pick the lock if that failed. Both helped me grasp the key and we precariously turned the lock open. I entered alone fearing I would find him indecent.
On the evening of February 26th I found him in the bathroom on the floor 8 hours or so after he had passed, at least that is estimation the paramedics gave me. He died, alone, of pneumonia or some respiratory infection. I can't help but wonder if I had been there maybe I could have helped him. It shatters my world to see that image and to imagine again and again cleaning up the scene where he passed, the many many empty bottles of liquor strewn around the house, the room he was violently ill in before he passed; but it is burned into my mind.
Some background, my parents divorced when I was 11, after my father had an extramarital affair. It wasn't the affair itself, but it did break the proverbial camels back. He was a lifelong alcoholic and an unrepentant one. He loved me though and truly wanted to be in my life. He bought a house nearby so I could live with him part time and life continued, albeit in a surreal, odd, and new way. For many years this went on until finally he remarried and moved to Arizona where he lived with his wife. He kept the home here in Oregon and came back to stay and spend time with me every few months out of the year.
I took my time in college, but never finished my degree. I've never known what to do with my life, so it had always seemed easier to do nothing. I completed 175 credits with a decent GPA but never finished earning my English degree and never transferred to my fathers Alma Matter at the U of O from a community college.
Our relationship in recent years had really struggled. He began to retreat into a cycle of severe alcohol abuse, principally when he would be here, in Oregon, away from his wife. He even started to accuse me of stealing small things from him during his binges. It hurt so much and I tried so many times to tell him what he was doing and how it hurt me. But it never worked. I went to counseling as a teen and tried hard to come to terms with my fathers addiction, and for a time I felt like the responsibility wasn't mine, like I was free. I wanted to be there for my father and help him, but I couldn't make him stop. That was up to him.
More and more when he would visit he would get sick. Always a man to refuse help he never wanted anyone to give him soup, water, anything to help him recover. He would shut down and just sleep, occasionally getting up to take a sip of wine or use the bathroom. I wanted to be there for him but it broke my heart. He would tell me to just leave him alone so he could get better. He made me feel like there was nothing I could do to help him. I gave up on him for the second time... I never thought anything could hurt more.
Now I know it can. It can hurt so much more. It has been almost 4 months since my father died and I am crying writing this right now. I feel like even now I am just starting to feel this anger and depression I have never experienced before. It's hard to know how to function.
At first my friends were really present, the first week or two at least. But now I feel so abandoned by the people in the past I have considered my best friends, people I have known for over a decade. I have reached out and told them I am hurting, and still not one call in so long. Even the friend who was there with me when I found him. Barely one hello, how are you. Not a single conversation not elicited by me. It hurts so bad to lose my father, and I know they can't grieve for me... but it just feels like they don't want to even be there for me while I do. I can't explain it to them, every time I do they say things like "that's just the bile rising up [from you,] that's what happens during grief" Or "everyone will go through this, just man up, get a job." None of them have lost a parent.
I know I need to do something with my life, I know I am not the person I should be or could be. But I just want love from my friends. Some support and an occasional kind thought. Just someone to even pretend to care. I don't even know what to do except continue to feel further isolated. The more I make myself vulnerable by opening up the more I feel ostracized. Do I just accept this silently? I am beginning to think I expected too much from them, like people would all of a sudden be there for me and help me get through this horrible horrible experience. But instead I've heard from them only once or twice since his passing and increasingly less as time goes on.
I am so lucky my Mother and Grandmother are still alive, but I know, or at least feel, that even though they care deeply for me they only listen to and deal with my grief because we are family and there isn't much other option for them. They have a genetic investment.
My fathers much belated Service is coming up on Saturday, which has been organized by my fathers wife, who has decreed my mother isn't welcome at my fathers memorial yet still expects me to care for her and be compassionate. A few of my friends have told me they can't make it and 'possibly' we can get together afterwards 'for some drinks.'
I feel like I am living in a bizzaro-world where down is up and left is out, like I am under assault from every direction, like some vile paranoia infests my mind turning me against the people I care about. I just needed to vent, I feel so alone.
P.S I'm sorry, this is like my life story as I am rereading this, maybe too much information... Thanks if you got through it all and if you didn't that's ok, too.
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