2 years

my father's yahrtzeit is coming up soon. its hard to believe that it has been two years since his passing.
when someone that close passes it effects a person in ways one would not believe until one experiences it. it forces a person to face up to mortality. its not an easy thing to experience. fortunately or unfortunately there are many to commiserate with once one has experienced the death of a parent. its a club one never asked to join, but one is a member of nonetheless.
its two years since his passing but only a year since i have stopped being in avelus. every time there has been a holiday this year it seemed like a cloud had been lifted since the year of avelus. this year it will be a year since the cloud has been lifted and life has continued. its not exactly as it had been before, but
the cloud is now gone and it is time to remember those who have passed with light instead of darkness.

yartzeit

the year of mourning is over.i thought it would never end. i had a shiva that couldnt start until after pesach and a year of avelus that had two adars.  i have survived it !!
today is my father's yartzeit. im glad that a year has passed. those first months after his passing were excruciating. i couldn't eat and i couldn't sleep. now that a year has passed those symptoms are gone. it is also a year since i have seen my father. its always a weird feeling when someone passes away and one imagines how the years will pass and it will be x amount of time since one has seen the dearly departed. one does not forget them, but because they have passed on . one can choose to remember the good parts and forget the parts that  one would rather not remember.
though a lot has happened since my father's passing it also seems like it was just the blink of an eye since it happened. life is strange like that.
i've learned a lot about life and about myself since then. death is funny that way. it forces the living to re-access  life.