I found my Dad dead this morning

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

143. When all is said and done....

the niggley little details, please take time to mourn. Cry, cry your eyes out.

Your situation takes me back to my Dads passing. He went in for a heart by-pass, never recovered.
I saw him 20 minutes before he died. As I was leaving his hospital room I felt something.
It seemed like his hand reached out and went into my back and made me turn towards him. I went back and kissed him, told him that I loved him. He was out of it heavily sedated. It seemed impossible, now, and at the time.

He was supposed to be fine, fixed, healthier than ever. That was not to be.

My mother, bless her, could not handle his ashes in her home. I could never understand that, so I was in charge of his ashes. I thought it was an honor. We talked every day till his eventual burial, three months later.

One day when I thought I was in complete control do the situation, my Dad and I went for a walk.
We walked, his ashes and I, along one of my favorite paths. He a city person, me an outdoors lover.
We went to a place that I considered sacred. One of the highest points in the county we lived. I always wanted to take him there to show him just why I was like I was.

We sat, we talked, we remembered. And I cried. I left my heart and soul out on that bluff, I left my grief out there.

Over thirty years ago that happened, it seems like the day before yesterday now.

Sorry for the screed, sorry for your loss.

It will get better, your feelings of immediate loss will subside, but never lose the memories, that's immortality.

Take time for yourself. Grieve as you deem appropriate. But please take time to mourn.