Puzzled

Today I was walking along going from one building to another for a meeting and I got that funny feeling that I often get now when I’m getting on with my day and focussed on the jobs I’m doing for work. It’s that feeling where suddenly your thoughts stop in their tracks, and you find yourself feeling puzzled - puzzled that anything is wrong, puzzled that anything has happened at all. Today I found myself having to say to myself in my head a few times that Dad has died, it has actually happened. But it feels so unreal when I’m away from anything that would remind me of him, like today where my mind was focussed on the meeting I was going to and what I was meant to be doing there. My thoughts just suddenly switched in a flash, and it felt so weird to think that Dad is dead and that we will never see him again. Did that day of the 9th October really actually happen?

I have 3 good friends who have lost a parent, and chatting with them in the past before it ever happened to me made me think a lot about Mum or Dad dying. I couldn’t imagine it ever happening to me, not until I was a lot older when it’s bound to happen. But today, there I was saying to myself that my Dad has died. I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact that it was actually me saying it for real and not one of my friends, as it always has been in the past.

I get those times a lot, because you can’t just stop daily life in a situation like this. It’s easy to get caught up once again with the busyness of life, and then when reality hits, sometimes it’s like a punch in the stomach and the pain feels fresh once again; but other times, like today, it’s just puzzling….