What is Normal?

This is not a normal blog post.  This is me typing out random thoughts that keep firing through my brain.  I have to get it out because it is just too much to keep inside of me.  Please forgive this if it is raw, boring or just too personal.  It is the only way I know how to release.
I can not begin to process all the thoughts racing through my mind.  Since my mom passed away a week ago today, my world in un-recognizable to me.  What I thought was my normal life, is no longer in any way, normal.  The role that I thought I was to play in my parents life, is no longer the role that I am playing.  Responsibilities I thought I would have years to take on, have now been given to me at a time I was not prepared to receive them.  My mom has left me without any warning and no explanation of what I am  suppose to do.  As the only girl in my family, I feel an inherent responsibility to step in for my mom.  This is an impossible feat, as there is no replacement for her.  The demands she placed on herself to be perfect, have made it virtually impossible for anything I do to feel sufficient in my eyes.  I am exhausted to the point that I can't sleep, and I have not done 1/4 of the things she does on a daily basis.  I don't know what to do for my dad.  I don't know how to ease his pain and yet give him the room to start moving forward.  I look around my parents house and I just become so sad.  So terribly, terribly sad.  How can my dad stand to be in that house with my mom and him everywhere.  It is so lonely and quiet.  The grocery shopping, the food prep, the shrubs in the front yard that need pruning, the pansies around the mailbox that should be dead-headed daily so they keep looking fresh, the dusting, the laundry, the list goes on and on.  How can my dad not be overwhelmed when I am? 

I want to leave and go home to my life.  I want to try and get back to something that seems familiar.  I want my kids, my husband, my home, my bed, my dog, my own space to grieve.  And yet, I feel an overwhelming amount of guilt because I want to get away and escape.  I don't want to be in their house anymore right now.  Is this so wrong?  My dad wants to go through some of her things, but I don't want to do that now, but I also don't want him to have to be seeing her things all the time if he doesn't want to.  I don't understand the stages of grief and I guess everyone goes through them differently.

I have unanswered questions that I would love answers to, but will never get.  Did my mom have a feeling that something was going to happen to her?  Dad says she did some odd things a few days prior and it makes me wonder.  Did she suffer before the aneurysm, because she complained of a headache early that morning and then when it hit, she was calling out "help me, help me" in the dialysis center where my dad was.  Did she know this was the end?  Could she hear me or feel me at all when I got to her and she was on life support?  I sat by her side, forcing her hand to hold mine for the last 7 hours of her life, with my head on her shoulder, staring at her eyelids, praying to see them move so I would know she was still there.  Squeezing her hand as hard as I could hoping she would wake up and tell me i was hurting her or just squeeze my hand back.  I couldn't believe she was just gone.  How could a life go that fast?  What were her thoughts that morning, for the few short hours she was here?  And more importantly, how do I STOP having all these questions and thoughts race through my mind?

In spite of my efforts to feed my dad the way he is to be fed, he has lost more weight this week.  I have made sure he eats three meals a day and drinks as much fluids as he is suppose to, but yet his weight goes down.  With his kidney disease, I worry that he will get himself into more trouble with his health because he will not take enough care with his eating.  What will we do if he ends up back in the hospital again and my mom was the one who stayed with him around the clock when he was in the hospital.  Sooooo many things that i think of and worry about.  And the worst part is, no one has the answers for me. 

Tomorrow, which is Tuesday, I will go to a doctor's appointment with my dad, and then Tuesday evening, Robby will come get me and take me back home.  I am scared to leave but feel that it is time for me to go.  My brother's are going to come by and spend time with him and watch the Va. Tech football game with him Thursday night.  We all feel it is important that he get back to a normal routine, whatever that may be for him now.  He needs to do for himself, and as long as I am here doing for him, he will never do it on his own.  I am scared for him, I am scared for me.  But most of all, I am sad, and want HAPPINESS back.

I'm tired and don't feel like writing any more now.  But I imagine, I am not done.