by some act of god, in the months leading up to as well as after my own father being diagnosed with cancer, i kept a pretty detailed and consistent journal. that was the only time in my life i had done anything like that, so it wasn't normal for me. i stopped a few months after the diagnoses. i currently have no record of when my father in law passed away and suddenly tonight i remember it and need to write it.

it was tuesday night. dh was at work and i was settling in to some snacks and some tv. i was really happy. after dark i got a call from him. "can you come pick me up?" he asked. he never ever ever comes home early from work--he pretty much never skips work, not when he's sick an not for pretty much any reason, so i asked him if he was okay. "no," he said, "my father is dead."

i asked him if he was kidding and started shaking uncontrollably. i got in the car and drove to his work and it's kind of a miracle i wasn't in an accident, i was numb and couldn't really see. dh was waiting for me. i got out of the car. he was focused and he meant business. we agreed to drive up to his mom's right away, threw some things in a bag, and left around nine. he insisted on driving, i think so his mind would have something to focus on. he seemed unshaken and deliberate.

when we got to the house there were a few people there. hugs were exchanged and we were waiting for my mother in law's inactive son in law to show up, i don't remember why, before she was going to get a priesthood blessing. she was the plainest and most level-headed i had ever or have ever seen her. it was weird how clear we all were. two of dh's siblings were on a long-planned vacation to somewhere tropical. they had just arrived there and would eventually decide not to return before they had planned, having delayed the decision until an actual funeral date was set. two other siblings lived out of state, one of them young and broke. the only other sibling came to the house soon after, but i don't remember if it was that night or if it was the next day. i think she waited to drive the next morning and arrive first thing.

we stayed up late that night. people were in and out of the house and i don't have any idea what was said. it was really late when suddenly dh and i found ourselves alone together in the living room of his childhood home. we went toward the stairs down to his old room to stay the night, and right when he was about to descend he turned around to face me and buried his face in my shoulder. i know exactly what my husband looks like--of course i do--but in that split second when he looked in my eyes with that ache i saw him like he was years ago, skinny and young and just different somehow, especially his hair. he gripped me and sobbed and cried and cried. we stayed this way for a while, and i was glad the room remained empty and still. i asked him if he wanted to go down to the bed, and he said yes. there he cried some more, crying out in pain, especially that no one would tell him how his dad had died because the cause of death wasn't (and actually still isn't) definitive.

the next morning we all left without really eating or showering to go to the accident site. it was a really beautiful day and the scene was gruesome. officials followed us around all day as we retraced the last steps and collected the facts and the things we needed.

the worst part of that day was the news crew. when we came back from the accident site there were two news crews outside their family home. dh and i were both grateful we had arrived first and before everyone else, his mom and his sister. i stood back as dh asked them who they were and what they wanted, and amicably but pretty much told them that maybe later they could have an interview. they did leave before anyone got there. dh told me he wanted to tell them to fuck the hell off, which i never would have guessed by how nice he was to them. before they left he had given them his phone number, which i guess was a mistake because they wouldn't stop calling him. not when he was greeting guests at the door for his mom, not when we went to the store to get chips, not when he asked them to please lay off. they wanted him to give them an interview around the home and just give some memories and details of his dad's life. when he declined they said that sometimes lds families ask their bishop to represent the family and give a statement, and maybe dh could ask him. (bishop later declined unless dh and the family really wanted him to.) i don't think they ever got what they wanted. i don't remember what finally got them to shut up and back off.

we drove back and forth so much that all the trips run together. my  mother in law decided to have the funeral the next week instead of that weekend for some reason. i think she was just not ready. the house was always gurgling, full of visitors in and out all the time, plus more and more family all the time. the flow of people seriously delayed any plans or preparations, none of which were made really until the last, unavoidable second, but all the people seemed to comfort my mother in law. dh and i were grateful for our last hold out in his old room. we could go in and lock the door and just forget them all for a moment. it was really the only thing that kept us holding things together. we left all the events, including the public viewing, early and didn't say much to anyone. we locked the door and no one came looking for us. we stayed in there for hours, just being quiet. we had a lot of sex, i don't know why. it was like this unspoken thing, it just happened that way. the house was so full of people that it actually took time to cross a room, but in that bedroom we talked about the people and even laughed and rolled our eyes at the crazy or the family drama but talked almost nothing about the funeral or about what had happened.

the day of the actual funeral we pulled up with our dress clothes and dh's somewhat long-lost brother from texas, along with his wife and step daughter were crossing the street. for some reason i remember i was wearing my "votes for women" shirt. my brother in law called me a communist feminist with a big smile. someone said, "what's wrong with that?" i wanted to say, "hella nothing," but instead i just said "nothing" and smiled. dh's siblings were raised in the church but only his one brother (not the one from texas) was still in the church. so i constantly have this feeling of wanting to impress them/kind of tell them how i actually feel about the church, but they are so respectful and good at pleasantly avoiding the topic that it never really came up, and right then, seeing them for the first time since their father had died, just felt like the wrongest time to say "hella nothing." during the entire funeral there was this weird unspoken dynamic, buried deep. my mother in law wanted all of her inactive children to have spiritual experiences--purposefully planning activities and events around that, making a point of it. her inactive children, just having lost their father, i think wanted nothing to do with it. i guess i can't say whether or not they had spiritual experiences, but all the talk of the celestial kingdom and forever families and priesthood and temples fell so strangely flat. like, it just all happened in such a way that it even sounded weird to me, a somewhat still believing mormon. like a funeral was the last place in the world for religion. a lot of their extended family has also left the church, and everyone was walking on eggshells trying to remember a man still very much active in the gospel but with so many important people in his life that knew and understood him wholly but, ironically, not on that level.

the siblings gave the most beautiful life sketch. they took turns reading out of a hilarious and wonderful biography of their dad. my mother in law had talked for days about how she had written the perfect talk, which brought in the gospel but didn't harp on it, trying to be sensitive to the many in the room that didn't believe as they did. as far as i can remember, the talk was entirely about the plan of salvation.

before the funeral had started, my parents and both sets of grandparents had arrived. my own cancer-patient of a dad, leaning on my mom all the way to shuffle slowly along, met us in the viewing area but quickly said he felt uncomfortable being around my father in law's body and they again shuffled off. after the funeral was over, i met them briefly outside by the hearse. my brother was getting home from his mission in the next week or two, and after my mom reminded me sweetly and with strength to remember to take care of myself as well, with my hand outstretched and everything i said loudly something like, 'i will! and we'll see you again next week at the next party!!!" even in the moment i said it, i couldn't believe what i'd said. it was the most obnoxious, annoying, insensitive, weirdest, cruelest thing i had ever said, with weeping family and friends filing out of the doors on either side of me. and somehow, i had no control over it. i was way more messed up than i could grasp, and it just came out.

after the funeral i admitted to dh the worst of it. in order to keep from crying during the entire funeral--from the moment we first walked in to the viewing through every talk and finally to the release in the procession out to the hearse, i had loudly and as cartoonish-ly as possibly sang to myself in my head: "trolololo lo lolo lo lolo lo lolo lo lolo lo! trolololoLOOOO!" you know, exactly the way this guy sings it. the closer i came to crying the more exuberantly i sang it. i belted it when dh's sweetest, softer sister cried at he podium. when an older sibling of my father in law's sobbed loudly behind me right before the family prayer. even during my dh's beautiful solo song that he arrange himself, i sang it to keep from shedding more than a few tears. the thing about me is that when i cry, i cry for hours. i knew if i began crying at that funeral, i literally wouldn't stop crying for hours. i was in a weird, even removed and out of body-like fog those days, sad but not upset. but underneath something roared. when i told dh about the trololo, i was relieved that he laughed, understanding and even finding it hilarious. but i don't think i'll ever forgive myself for purposefully not feeling during my father in law's funeral what i really owed him.

several weeks later that something came bursting out. we were at home in our own bed and i was overcome. i sobbed and heaved just wanted to passed out. my sweet felt the grief mostly at night while i was asleep. i didn't even know he was up for hours crying unless he told me later. but right then in the middle of our okay evening i cried for the first time since my father in law had died. i sobbed about how life wasn't supposed to be like this. we were supposed to have dads and they weren't supposed to leave us--both of us. it wasn't okay and it wasn't fair, i sobbed and screamed.

i still have no idea how to act about it, and i still pretty much do nothing. i was with dh every step of the way but i didn't really feel (or wouldn't even feign to feel, feeling unworthy,) his grief. i was there, and yet it's like it didn't even happen to me. people kept giving me their condolences and it was like they were asking me if i was santa. i would shake and harden at the mention of it, but i couldn't fathom that it really happened. and i still feel like i let dh down in a grand and unforgivable way, even though i know that's not true and that we will carry this together all our lives. there is no way to know how to love someone in grief. there is on way you can begin to touch that grief. even as the most intimate person in their life, it will exist in on a plane you know exists but can't find.

sometimes i make a teasing joke about his dad, just like we did when he was alive, but it will be just gray enough that things get awkward or dh goes serious. somehow once "elf" quotes were flying someone said, "i hope you find your dad!" and dh and i just started saying it all the time, i don't even know why--we just thought it was hilarious, and i said it to dh just once as he was getting out of the car to pick up our pizza. he turned around and looked me squarely but kindly in the eye and said, "no, i won't," before giving me what i knew was a hurt smile and closing the car door. there are the hard moments that i think are still good--when the siblings are all together and they remember their dad. or even when we were with my family and dh accepted a father's blessing from my father and there was just this spirit in the room.

i can't pretend to know what dh thinks and feels and suspect i am very much separated from it, even though i supposed i may know some type of it soon enough. it's almost like i forget sometimes and when i remember i'm stung and can't believe it and get weird and touchy and i never know and have never known how to act about it.

i've done everything that felt right for him, that i could have, and yet it feels like the biggest shortcoming of my life.