The Stranger at The Funeral – Part 2 …

The Spin Cycle…

The night after we buried Dad, it was just Bully Junior and me. I cracked open a bottle of wine and poured a glass for him. He said he wasn’t feeling well. We sat in silence. Not peaceful silence, just blank space. Grief. Tension. Avoidance. Then off he went to bed.

I stayed up for a while, too drained to think, too wired to sleep. My head was spinning. My soul was running on fumes. Eventually, I went to bed too.

The next morning, he told me he’d been sick all night. I said, “What can I do to help?” Still in autopilot. Still trying. He needed a lift to the train station; he’d been dropped at my door by one of Bully’s buddies (a character worthy of his own blog post). I said yes, of course. Because that’s what I do.

The drive was quiet, awkward. At one point, he accused me of not caring; he said I should’ve checked on him in the night. As if I had the strength for anything at all. Truth is, if the roof had fallen in, I’d have slept right through it. But still, I apologized. Out of habit. Out of shock.

And all I could think was: What is wrong with this person?

Why does he act like he can’t wait to get away from me?

When I got home, I found out why.

The bathroom upstairs was a disaster. The bed, destroyed. Sheets ruined, duvet soaked, mattress wrecked. Like someone had lost a fight in there. Like the room itself was grieving.

My son has a load of issues. But heroin addiction has always been the biggest one. And he swore, over and over, that he hadn’t been using.

I wanted to believe him. I always do.

But as I stood at the industrial washing machine, watching the spin cycle churn through the mess, it hit me.

That’s me.

Spinning.
Exhausted.
Sick with sadness and holding it all in.
Trying to clean up something I didn’t break.
Trying to keep going when the only thing I wanted to do was lie down and disappear.

I didn’t confront him that day. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength. When you’re drowning in grief and betrayal, sometimes silence is the only thing you’ve got left.

And The Lesson:

Grief doesn’t come on its own. It brings company: ghosts, guilt, manipulation, and silence. Sometimes it teaches you loud things. Sometimes it just whispers.

This time, it whispered: You’re not here to fix everyone. You’re allowed to be tired. And you don’t have to keep apologizing for someone else’s wreckage.

Some days, surviving is the only job. And if that means standing alone at a washing machine, watching the wreckage spin, then so be it.

To be continued…