💀GRIEF ❤️ LOVE 👨‍👧PARENTING

When I Fell Apart At Kmart

The puppy plushy that pushed me over the edge

My Dad died when I was 16. I was 6-months pregnant. He was my best friend and one of the two humans who kept me alive and creating. The other being My phenomenal Mumma ❤️

I’m an only child to two spectacular people. Two incredible humans planned and tried for 6-years to bring a child into the world.

A high school music teacher and an educational psych. A match made interstellar.

At 42-years young my Dad got me. Dad would often say how from the second he held me, he had never been more in love.

April Fools

In the first hours of April first, we watched the light leave him. I think Dad would’ve found dramatic irony in the day he chose to depart this plane of existence.

Dogs and Dad

Dad and I often talked philosophically, I didn’t know all parents didn’t. They believed I could handle knowing the world. Or something? 🤷‍♀️

Dad was a self-proclaimed “Buddhist without beliefs”. He also would casually say how he’d be Reincarnated. As a dog.

My Dad loved philosophy. Last year Mum and I dug out his enormous philosophy book collection. Which I’m now nibbling my way through. I love philosophy too. Without it, I don’t believe we can improve.

Anyway, back on point. He’d tell me how if you were “bad in life” you’d get reborn as a puppy.

Young Bridie thought this was fantastic. And wondered how she could still be ‘good in life’ yet get to become a dog in the next life. Now? I wonder what he meant when he defined “bad”.

I wonder how he distinguished bad from evil and good from kind, etc. These are quandary level questions I’ll have to refine for myself.

Clean up in the soft toy isle

Christmas last year(2021) I was hunting for craft supplies and, very specific books all over town. As it often happens I ended up at Kmart.

Gazing out at me in the craft aisle for some reason was a glittery eyed Dachshund plush puppy.

Seriously, what were you doing behind the pom-poms puppy!?

There was something about its eyes that felt Sentient. Something about its tiny soft ears got me. This palm-sized plush toy sent me to trickling tears. The thoughts took me over, the badness of humanity couldn’t possibly exist in something as perfect as a Dachshund, surely?

I had to get the fuck out of Kmart, craft be damned. I was splitting at the seams, much like I imagine the cheaply made toy would after some loving.

What would happen to me? What was I doing with my life? Was I inherently “good” or “bad”? Was I a good parent? Would my daughters be dogs in the next life?

These were just a fraction of the questions flooding me that innocent day in Kmart.

Grand Babies

In the beginning, I mentioned being 6-months pregnant when Dad flew into the next life. That first womb dweller is now 9 and a half. With a little sister at 6.

It aches when I know Dad will never get to know his grand-babies. He’ll never see them evolve into the tremendous adults I know they’ll be.

They’ll never get to see me embarrassed by his loud voice and, pride in his treasured daughter. On a subconscious level, I never believed I deserved such affection and acclaim.

He would’ve adored his girls. Relished in their vivid passion for life, together.

We would’ve made wonderful music together, I just know it.

Life is fluxed – Final thoughts

I keep him alive through his songs and, well, genes. Admiring his life, cherishing the time we got. Mum and I talk to my daughter about him all the time. We make his past a part of our present. The girls get to know what a phenomenal person he is/was.

My Dad lives on in the hearts and, stories of so many people. I just get to carry his heart in mine. What a terrifying adventure to keep the heart of another beating.

I carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)I am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling) — E. E. CUMMINGS

I better start learning to carry it wisely. Life is fluxed and then you die, right?

Or in my case life is fluxed and, then I (hopefully) get to become a spoilt Dachshund puppy with a heart chockers with wisdom. 😉

This snappy grief-tinted memoir was inspired by Sally’s subtitle.

“Sometimes it’s the smallest things that send us over the edge”

— from her tantalisingly vulnerable self-care story you should likely read next “I Hit Burnout and Had a Meltdown Over Some Tart-Tins”. Thank you for your utter honesty, Sally ❤

By Bridie Dillon, Swirling in my love for words. Building a written empire✍️🌻

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