The Ramblings of a "Mad Man"

It has been over a year now, and I have tried many different techniques to release my grief. I have ran from it by taking a job hours away and spending months overseas even ostracizing my wife and children. I have drank, sometimes heavily, but almost consistently until recently. I continued my horrible habit of smoking and drowned my self in my work with little regard for the people who I love around me.
See, i found it very difficult to cry in the beginning. I felt horribly guilty for my inability to cry after my father’s death. Questions ran through my head like, “maybe I didn’t really love him?” or “maybe something is wrong with me that I don’t feel sad.” I considered the idea that I may not have the ability to feel any pain at all and had horrible thoughts of the possibility of being sociopathic. It never really occurred to me what had happened that night until recently. That night was so traumatic for me that my emotions simply shut down cold. I wailed incessantly based on my father’s suffering, but hardly shed a tear after his death. In all honesty, I had wished death on him earlier that same night and even offered to help because the suffering seemed so intense. By the time he finally decided to allow death to take hold of him, I was thankful for it. I was thankful that my father was not suffering any more. I still feel pangs of guilt now, as I write these words, that I can’t seem to shake even though I know it was okay to feel that way given the circumstances.
I have never had the unfortune to have to deal with the death of a loved one, especially a member of the immediate family. I remember once growing up. I was walking through the fields outside the house we owned in Chemung. I must have been somewhere around 10. Our white German Shepherd, Apollo, was out running around with me as well. It was a beautiful spring day, the flowers were all new and the ground was still damp from a late spring. As I played in the field, I noticed that Apollo had stopped and had his nose buried in the grass. As I walked closer I could hear screams that were so horrible, i can’t really explain them in words today, but Apollo had found a nest of baby rabbits and was systematically eating them alive as I watched. I got there just in time to see him bite the last naked rabbit literally in half. My mind went blank and anger welled up in me of the likes I have rarely if ever felt since and I kicked Apollo with all of my might in the ribs. I chased him furiously knowing that I had no chance of catching him and thankfully so. When I knew the chase was over and noticed Apollo with his blood soaked nose, thought that I wanted to play chase, i bawled. I cried for the little animals that never got a chance to live even a part of life and I cried especially for the suffering the poor animals had had to endure when their lives had come to an end.
I realize now that some kids would have walked up to that scene and thought to themselves that it was interesting, some may have even enjoyed the show. Hell, I know people that may have enjoyed the show now as disturbing as that is to think, but it is true. Which leads me to my next deduction about my emotions and how I handle them. I believe that I may be so sensitive, that at times my emotions simply can not process the level of grief that I may be experiencing. I may not be capable of dealing with all of the mixed emotions, thoughts, etc. That accompany an extreme loss such as the loss of my father. So, as a result, my mind buries it deep. So deep, in fact, that it is virtually untouchable. It requires time and effort to mine it out of my subconscious so that I can deal with it one piece at a time and so here we are. I am writing to deal with some of my unspoken truths and hopefully someone is reading that may gain some small insight into their loss as a result of these words.
I had previously stated that I had offered to help my father die. I never hesitated on this point and would have helped my father in any way he requested, but in the end, i believe he waited for me to leave so that this particular action would never be. I am not sure if he didn’t want me to see him go or if he didn’t want me to carry the weight of having helped someone die with them. It could have been pure happenstance that not 5 minutes after I left, my father died without a word. I guess I will never know, which is hard for an engineer like myself to accept. After all, my job is to understand and make sense of hard problems, identify the solution, and solve the problem. Unfortunately, there is no real answer to these questions and it is this fact that makes me understand that need for people to believe in a higher being. A God or deity to take away this lack of understanding, this void of unknowable pain. It makes perfect sense, though I don’t subscribe myself.
One summer day, my father and I were walking back from the creek where we had been hiking or hunting for crayfish. I don’t really remember the source of the journey, but as we were walking up North street, we both say a Chipmunk half squashed by a car on the road. In obvious pain and suffering. At this age, eight or nine, I was not at all equipped for what I was seeing and definitely not equipped for what I was about to see. My father moved quickly for a large rock and quickly brought it down on the suffering animal with no hesitation. It was quick, and the Chipmunk was certainly dead on impact. I don’t remember the mess, but I am sure there was one. This may be one of those experiences that are buried in the back of my mind. However, I do remember asking my father why he had done that. He asked me simply, “would it have been better to leave the animal there to suffer and die slowly?”. After all, there was nothing we could do for this Chipmunk. It was certainly going to die and my father’s point was simple. Why let it suffer when you can do something to end the suffering. From this one single event in my life, I understood how difficult an act like that must be and the selflessness a person exhibits when they help an animal or, to get back to a point, a loved one to die rather than allow them to suffer for the selfish reason of not wanting to let go. It was this single moment in time when I was 8 years old or so, that would define how I felt on those last weeks with my father as we discussed the end and possible endings of his life.