Let’s see if I can do this. Talk about how I’m really doing. [If you didn’t know, my Dad, Walter Marshall Maheux, died on March 24th, a little over a month after we found out he had stage 4 lung cancer.]

I mentioned in the most recent Bureau of Awesome Podcast that I was cheerfully depressed.

I’m functioning. I’m going to work. I’m doing side projects. I’m keeping busy. I laugh at jokes. I smile. I feel happy. I find things beautiful. But as I said on twitter today, everything’s tinged with a miasma of suck.

I drive to and from work on I-95: Westbrook to Kennebunk, Kennebunk to Westbrook every day. It’s spring and the green forest on either side of the highway is very vibrant green. And on a sunny day, the blue of the sky is bluer than blue, and the combination takes my breath away. That is so beautiful, I think. And then I’m crying, because how can anything be beautiful any more?

When Dad died it felt like someone or something sucked the light out of the world. How can life be fun without him, I thought?

So I pretend I didn’t think that.

It’s easy.

I just push it to the back of my head. But it’s really still there. Sending out suck-waves everywhere.

On his blog, blurbomat.com, Jon Armstrong talks about his experience when his father died:

I was talking about grief with my family over the holiday weekend and I was struck by the time it took me to feel normal after my dad died. I figure it was around 3 years.

Great.

Tonight Mom and I went to the Westbrook together days. They have live music, a carnival, lots of vendors from local businesses and non-profits. Edmund and I live very close to the park, so I picked up Mom, parked at our house and we walked over with our camp chairs.

I bought some fried dough and a soda. Mom helped me eat it.

As we sat there listening to the Bob Charest Band cover Jay-Z, Lady Gaga and Gnarls Barkley, I remembered that last year it was me, Mom and Dad hanging out at Westbrook Together Days. They drove over separately, and parked near our house and we all walked over together. In fact, I took a picture of my parents that day, from which I cropped out my Mom (with her permission), that I’ve used several times when talking about Dad in this blag. Here it is in its entirety:
Last year my parents got up to dance a couple of times. This year Mom and I did some chair dancing. Without Dad there to drag one of us (Mom) to the dance floor, we weren’t going.

Without Dad.

I haven’t had a melt-down yet. Will I have one? I’m not sure. Maybe I should have one. Every time I start getting really worked up, I stamp that shit down.

Yet. Life has lost some of its awesome. Or said awesome is obscured by a funk cloud the size of Texas.

So yes. I’m doing okay. Because to do otherwise would be paralyzing.

Just wait until I accept I’ll never see him again.

Check back in three years, why don’t ya.