Lost my Dad, February of this year

[these_are_kolaches]

Just throwing this out there for anyone that had or is having a similar situation.

I have a really tough time describing the circumstances, but my Dad died in the hospital about a thousand miles from me. I had no way to get to him. There was no funeral.

My family and I lived about 300 miles from my parents. This was close enough to feel I could get in the car and go visit for a weekend, but far away enough to feel independent. During my Dad's hospitalization I was there with him multiple times. I'd drive 300 miles just to be with him for a while, kiss his forehead, talk to him even though he could not talk back, then drive/cry my way back home.

There were a couple other deciding factors (house, job) that came into play, but during those drives back home I pretty much made up my mind to turn my whole life on it's ass. I decided to move my family another 800 or so miles away, and to do so quickly. I almost did so because he -told me to-.

I should note that I have some unaddressed feelings toward my mom about the way she treated him when he was living. She wore the pants, and he was the dumb, henpecked husband. She lit into him at any opportunity, and for the smallest infraction (loss of ATM receipt, 5 or so miles over the speed limit, smoking cigarettes, pretty much any expression of an "opinion" was met with being told how wrong he was). This is an environment that I can't imagine being any different, because it was always that way. I'm guilty of it myself at a young age.

I left my wife and kids at home and struck out across the states for another job. On the way there, Dad passed away. Mom called me with the news, and together we made the decision to not go into debt over his body, to have him cremated and spread. To not hold a big funeral.

So I'm now in my new home, reunited with my family, farther from my mom than I've ever been, and I fluctuate between feeling like a big super-grown up adult that has done his own thing in this world and someone who has done the most childish thing he could to passively-aggressively strike out at my mom. This, coupled with plain old grief over the death of my father has been kicking me in the ass since February.