Well, fuck.

Bad personal news below the cut

My Dad had a heart attack. His last.

He’s been beating the medical odds all his life, and this stupid thing gets him just days before Christmas.

I’m all kinds of illogical at the moment. Very understandable. And the one thing that’s sticking with me at this time is the fact that I’d got him another one of those joke-a-day calendars for Christmas.

Da loved jokes. Especially puns. He gained great joy in dropping a real stinker of a pun on anyone in his sphere of influence and then cackling as his victim told him to fuck off.

[I may still have a few puns in my queue. Reblogged for him and he’ll never see them now. Do I go delete them? Do I leave them to get posted anyway? What do I do?]

Chaos isn’t taking it well. I don’t know why, but she thinks his death is her fault. I’ll be propping her up, of course. Hugs and distractions are going to be the order of the day.

This is the first death in the family that my kids are old enough to understand. And it is understandably upsetting for my poor darlings.

Mayhem is trying to be strong for me, bless him. I worry that it’s all going to explode out in a different direction. Chaos is still crying and Beloved is trying to get her to settle… and it’s not working.

I’m… trying to figure out what I can do.

It’s not exactly comforting to know that what I can do is ‘nothing’.

Which is why I’m writing.

And the small comforts I have are pitiful indeed. At least he wasn’t awake. At least it was quick. At least he didn’t linger. Horrible, tiny, pathetic small comforts.

I can’t yet think of him telling horrible puns to the heavenly host; who will consequently wonder why they ever let him in. That will come in time.

What I have to do now is make sure Mum doesn’t tie herself in knots.

My life is on hold. Or in some kind of holding pattern.

And then I’ll move on because I have to.

Time marches on. The living need the living. Hurts heal, and I will eventually be able to think about my father, the king of the shitstirrers, without tearing up.

Just. Not today.