I keep trying to write about how my dad’s death has affected my feelings about God and religion and worship and faith. I keep trying, and failing.

I’m failing, in part, because it’s still so raw. The pain still keeps me up at night. But I’m failing, too, because I’m just that confused. And it feels as though there’s a cost to that confusion, that in remaining confused, I’m missing some vital ingredient in a recipe for coping with grief. That if I could just sort this out, I’d feel better.

Part of the issue is this: I still have my dad’s cremated remains. I’d had a plan for those remains, but I’m now doubting that plan, in part because of a lingering attachment to and faith in Catholic ritual. I just don’t know to what extent I should allow the hangover from my Catholic upbringing affect my decisions here. And I don’t know that because I don’t know whether that hangover is just a hangover, or lingering sincere belief.

I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t know how to write about this, because I’m not sure, exactly, that I want to write about this, because every time I make the attempt, I can feel my anxiety rise.

But I need to sort this out. I do. The need presses on me like a physical weight.

This, all of this, is, some days, too hard.