Coping: Emily Style

So in the last three years, I've lost my father, my grandmother, my marriage (pending), my 13-year-old dog, and my brother. Why am I not suidical, you ask? I have no tangible words of wisdom, really. I can't say: Do this, and you'll be fine. In fact, platitudes like that really piss me off. I've never had good coping skills. I have no good explanation for this, except that the first 21 years of  my life were pretty sun-kissed. I had it good. My family was close and funny and smart, and I had great friends and a bright future and endless possibilities. I was wrapped in that tight-knit bubble that all young people cling to that ensures invincibility and infinite happiness.

Each of these things has taught me a lesson. Whether I use those lessons to make a difference, even if only to myself, remains to be seen. I miss my father and my grandmother so much, it literally causes an ache inside me if I think about it too long. I want to pick up the phone and tell them something, and then, like a crazy person, I just tell them myself. I guide parts of my life by advice from them that I hear in my head, and that's what's kept me from drowning in grief.

With my precious dog Norton, I am okay with the fact that he lived to be almost 92 dog years and had a good life and was a happy, spoiled dog. When I think about him, a lot of his memory is inextricably tied to my father, and I don't care what they say about Dog Heaven. He and my dad are "at play in the fields of the Lord," as my dad used to say, and Norton is chasing squirrels, and my dad is throwing a ball that Norton will never bring back. Even in death, I don't think he deigns to fetch.

I imagine that my grandmother and my brother are driving each other crazy with the remote controls in Heaven, and my grandmother thinks it's too cold. I'm sure my brother reminds her she could've gone the other way, where being cold wouldn't have been even the slightest issue, and she tells him to hush. It's hard for me to personalize my brother's Heaven, because we weren't that close. He was 15 years older than me, and even besides that, we had grown apart in the years before he died.

I stupidly thought that I had a lot of time to repair our relationship, and I was wrong. I don't look back and have huge regrets, because he made some personal decisions that made it a lot harder for our relationship to be repaired. However, I regret that he died possibly thinking that I didn't love him. I did, but I wanted the Superhero Big Brother that I remember when I was little. I wanted him to forget about the crappy hand he was dealt and turn it into a success story and live to be a great father to his daughter and a great grandfather to his grandson, Jackson, but my wanting something doesn't make it true.

Here is what I know: In the week after my brother died, I got to spend much-needed and long-overdue time with my niece Claire, who I worry about every day, I got to spend time with my great nephew, Jackson, who is a big, hot handful of Terrible Twos (I changed two diapers!!), and I got to literally collapse into a tearful hug with my still-husband, whose presence at the funeral touched my heart in a way I can't explain, and I've gotten to take care of my mom, which seems only fair, since she's been taking care of me for 35 years.

I have no Deepak Chopra answers. I don't do things the right way. I decided to cut and dye my own hair today and just did it. I have no idea how it looks yet, because it's still wet, but I do know that I brushed a small Muppet of hair into the trash and left the dye on as long as possible because this gray hair nonsense has been going on long ENOUGH! But, I also know that my best friend of 20 years had a baby today, and that helps with the Lion King-Circle-of-Life coping....a baby! We were 17 five minutes ago. These are the things that keep me going.