Your life would be harder if I stayed

I went to a psychic/ clairvoyant.  I haven’t been to a psychic since my last one, Guinevere, moved to travel a couple years ago.  I never really considered her a psychic, but more of a life coach.  I felt that she told me things that I already knew deep down.  I only saw her a couple of times, but she helped me help myself in giving me direction.  When I found my self in front of the store where I used to see Guinevere, I decided it was time again to see if someone clicked.  I had never seen a psychic since Guinevere because I was worried I would have a bad experience and find a charlatan. When friends or new acquaintances tell me stories of their super natural experiences such as seeing spirits, or unusual things happening, or spirits talking to them I believe them, 100%. My daughter spoke to a woman that had been murdered in a Jacuzzi when she was 3.  I believe, plain and simple.  However, when things happen to me in that area I doubt myself.  A good friends dead mother talked to me in my head once when I was over at his house and I believe my dad, grandfather, and uncle have visited me in my dreams.  However, I still doubt.

I was with my son at the time and asked him if he wanted to see a psychic with me for fun.  He agreed and I picked the first profile I read of a woman named Rachel that is a psychic/ clairvoyant.  The second we walked in she told my son that she knew he had “the gift”. Turns out that my son never told me that my dead father had been talking to him.  He was worried that it would upset me. He sometimes sees him in visions, my father has spoken to him in his head telling him what was going to happen before his football plays, and he has seen him in dreams.  The kicker is Rachel knew specific things my father had said to him and knew specific things my son did that she could have never guessed.  Rachel said my father told him to stop fussing in the bathroom and for the time it takes Jett to do his hair my father could shower, shave, go to the bathroom and get dressed.  I just started laughing more of a nervous laugh because it is so true.  Then Rachel said my father said he will stay out of the bathroom from now on.  She also said my father told him not to be a fireman or a policeman, something in that range.  In the car on the way home Jett told me that my father had told him once in the bathroom not to be a policeman.  Needless to say with this whole thing I am a bit in shock and confused.

My father also had things to say to me which were prominently over and over: “Your life would be harder if I stayed.”  My father and I were arguing through Rachel pretty much, which is pretty much how we left our relationship before he died.  It got to a point where I asked for specifics and he was not shy in giving them.  He said that I would have chosen the wrong crowd of friends to hang out with, the wrong men to date, and he would have left anyway.  Wouldn’t my life have been worse if he just left for 20 years?  I said no because he would still be here.  There would still be a chance. He countered that if he didn’t kill himself that day it would have been another day in the future. He said he was here now, just not alive.  I countered with the fact he is just not here. Not here to be with my kids, for my kids to know him. Again he insisted that he is here. He is with my kids and myself.

Its been a week since this interaction.  I even went back the next day.  I have been really thinking about that statement over and over; “You live would have been harder if I stayed”. I’m really trying to picture my life if he was still here, right now, with my life how it is, because it wouldn’t have turned out the way it has if he would have stayed.  My entire life I would have been wanting his approval on most aspects of my life.  I wouldn’t have chosen certain paths. I probably wouldn’t have left Illinois.  So, if he was here now. Here in my life what would it be like?  In these questions he would be in a good/ playful mood: Would I be afraid to have him around my friends in certain social situations?  Would I be afraid with certain comments that came out of his mouth? Or his disposition?  Would I be embarrassed if he made off color jokes to my girl friends or tried to convince acquaintances of some kind of a get rich quick scheme?  The answer to those questions is yes and it puts a knot in my stomach. If my father was in the same depressive horrible mood as when he died and I visited my mother at the house with my kids and he never got up off the couch how would I feel? What if he never played with my kids like I imagine in my dreams? What if my kids were afraid of him? What if it got so bad I never came to the house with my kids.  What if my kids asked me why grandpa hated them? What if he did interact with my kids, but things were taken too far? What if he took my kids to the race track on school nights? I have really been trying to put myself in these scenarios because I need to.  I have made myself crazy with all the “what ifs” I could have changed about his death, but none of the “what ifs” about if he stayed.  It is very hard for me to answer the what if he stayed questions honestly and my brain actually tries to shut down and not deal with it.  It took me two days to be able to write this. For over 20 years I would only “what if”……he did take my kids on bike rides and to 6 flags, and ride roller coasters, and for ice cream, and teach Jett how to box and play sports, and took Sedona shopping.  What if he walked me down the aisle and built me a house? Would all of those what ifs even have been remotely possible.

I dove into a deep depression yesterday.  I knew what I needed to do to get out of it, the first step is just to get out of bed and get dressed.  That first step is agonizingly hard and I didn’t know if I could do it.  I thought it would take me hours to leave the house. However, one step lead to another like brushing my teeth, eating, putting on my shoes, finding my keys, letting the dogs out/in. All of those mundane small things were just impossibly hard.  Picking up my kids from school, trying to interact with them like a normal person…excruciating.  I made it to a class and just getting my mind in a different mode I could feel myself inching slowly out of the huge wave of fog that came over me. Inch by inch… centimeter by centimeter. At dinner I was able to laugh with the kids in a real way and not a fake just trying to get by way. Today is not as bad.

I feel like I need to stay here though, even with just one foot in.  I need to answer the “what if I stayed”.  My life would have been harder if he stayed.  I will always doubt the psychic and even if it wasn’t real, I will still treat this experience like I did that last psychic, which was as a life coaching experience.  The words are still true even if they were made up and coming from Rachel.  Would my life have been harder if he stayed? All the tears I cried and guilt I have felt for 20 years…could that have been worse?  I will need to think about that.

My father had a weird sense of humor as I do. When I told Rachel that my fathers brother had killed himself several years after my father killed himself she said my father chimed in with: “He had to copy me.” That is just so something that my father would say.  He also said he didn’t care if it was cheating telling Jett the football plays the other team were going to make right before it happened.  I have a hard time remembering actual conversations and his tone from when he was alive, it is just too overwhelming.  When Rachel repeated “He had to copy me” and “I don’t care if it’s cheating” it just plain sounded like him. I remembered his tone. It is just a lot to process.  Writing is how I process.

A couple months ago this poem came in my head.  I guess this would be the hope of how it would be if he stayed. My father was a carpenter.

I can swim through the ocean I can run through the sea. I can climb every mountain. Can you build it for me?

Push on the tire swing, climb balancing high in the sky. Walk a terrifying tight rope . Can you build it for me?

Pretend I’m a princess calling down to my love on my balcony below. Climb my stair case in my tower. Can you build it for me?

A mansion of wonder with paintings and artistry galore. Fine statues and gilded hand carved woodwork and gates made of iron and Stone. Can you build it for me?

you had to copy me

I dont care if it is cheating

shower no fireman