Longing.

If there is one thing I can honestly say I was not prepared for on this journey called Grief, one thing among many really, it would be the inconsistency. The ups. The downs. The highs. The lows. And neither is dependent upon the other. There are days that I can be going about my day and then out of nowhere, I can feel the cloud looming and me sinking. Before I know it, the day is, well, not so fine anymore. Sometimes I know why...a song is played, I catch a familiar scent, someone says something that reminds me of my father. Other days it comes out of nowhere and as hard as I try, I can't explain why. And then there are the days where the most unordinary things are the catalysts...
This week it was my writing desk. My writing desk? We got back from having dinner on Wednesday night and had a great time with our friends. I turned off all of the lights and was getting ready to soak in my bath and go to bed. I walk past that desk countless times a day. It has never stirred any thoughts other than it being a fixture of furniture in Michael's toyroom now. But it did that night.
I stopped and stared at it...remembered how it sat in my room in my childhood home. How I loooved that house. How my father made my room for me with his own two hands...built the walls, put up the wall paper, (which he did not agree with, but let me have anyway).. he put in the ceiling and made the closets extra big for all my things. When it was finished, it was perfect and I loved it. And sure enough, in went my desk. My father didn't like the desk either. It was shabby and wobbly and white like everything else I owned. He told me many times if I got rid of it he would buy me a new one that was bigger and better and sturdier. But that's the one I wanted and I wanted it just the way it was. It has traveled with me to college and back and to every place I've lived thereafter...
And on Wednesday night it reminded me of nothing more than sitting on the ground talking to my father while he made that room for me. I was of no use when it came to tools or building materials, but I could talk a mean conversation. It made me smile to think of how he would have rolled his eyes and had his own commentary when we move out of this home and into our new home with the desk in tow.
But more than anything it made me long to be able to go back to that time and just sit with him. Nothing more. Just sitting and talking and dreaming like we always did...
The desk is still here. It's as wobbly as ever, but still standing and serving it's purpose. He is not. And that just doesn't seem quite right in my world...