Good Morning Dad

Well, it has been seven months since you went away makes it sound as if you just moved - passed away - I don't like that term either - died - that word is the worse, but the most direct way of saying what happened - how I hate that word.

Troy gave me an electronic picture frame - I can hear you now...A What? How can a picture frame be electronic? LOL  I placed pictures of you, mom, Troy, Clayton, Amanda in it as well as some of the family when we all gathered together that last time.

My favorite picture is the one I took of you with you wearing camouflage hat, glasses and you gave a two thumbs up. It showed me your courage even when you felt your worst. And when I need encouragement it seems that is the one that always seems to be up when I glance at the frame.

If I only had half not even half just a finger tip of that courage and strength you showed throughout your illness...no that's not right...you showed your whole life, then I would be alright.

The picture I took of you standing by the tree in our back yard with your hand against it just came up. I LOVE THAT PICTURE!!!  You look so good in the white cowboy hate. I have that hat hanging over my bed now.

I took the kids to school this morning and as far as I know, I don't have any other plans for the day. I have been thinking about working on my book, but when I do I remember all the times I worked on it and I could have been spending that time with you. I wish I could take those moments back.

You know Dad, even though I knew you were ill and that the cancer would eventually take you away from us I never thought you would really die not even your age made me believe that could happen. I know I knew it would happen one day, but it was always so far off in the future. Do you know what I mean?

Now I go to work - I found a job, not only one but two - I will tell you more on that in a few minutes, but first I better finish my thought before I forget. - now what was I saying...oh yea. LOL.  I go to work and I think about you whenever I see a sympathy card - mom as well - and I think how I always new that if I ever needed a safe place to go or just needed anything that you would be there. It was a natural thing to think and feel and know.

Now that you are gone I realize how much I took that thought and feeling for granted - the picture of Mom and four of us older kids just came up. You remember our passport picture.  We were going to meet you in Germany.

Anyway, and the reality of that safety net is hitting home hard, because I know that not only I but all of us kids and all that love you so much will never have that safety net again.

Why is it Dad that you only realize what you had and how very much you love what you had is gone? You think I would have remembered that since losing mom. I guess as life goes on you tend to get use to things as they are. There will always be that empty place inside you, but life without the one you love becomes routine.

I doubt that will be anytime soon for me or any of us. You were our rock, our strength, our guide in what is right and wrong. That will always remain true Dad. We just have to find another way of finding that in you/us.

When I see pictures of you, I can still feel how it felt to wrap my arms around you in a hug and strength of your arms as you wrapped them around me. I close my eyes and I think I can still get that again, all I have to do is walk into the other room, but reality slaps me in the face and I remember you are not in the other room or out in the garage and you never will be again.

The day I kissed you on your head in goodbye and watched them load your body into the back of that vehicle ended those days for me - for us all. So, maybe my way of keeping that feeling that you are not really gone is by doing this...writing to you. It's a way that I can still feel close to you and not hurt others by always talking about you or getting a I heard this all before look.

O.K. About my job. I have two or at least I will starting January 31. I work for Hallmark again - part time - just four or five hours a week, but the last two weeks I have gotten eight and this week I get more. They have inventory. I work Tuesday 1-5 and Friday 5pm to 2am. Yea, not crazy about the hours, but at least it's hours.

On the 31st I will go for Orientation for Cabellas. It's a sporting Good store, but I'm sure you already know that. Troy loves that I will be working there! LOL

I know you're thinking, I don't know beans about sporting equipment. That's why they are sticking me on the switchboard. LOL Yea, just where I need to be...On the phone talking. LOL I will be getting a good start up pay and hopefully it will be full time with me being there when they open.

Where will it be located? Oh, behind Comcast. I will need to have Troy show me how to get there one day so I don't get lost on my first day. that would be a good first impression, wouldn't it?

Well, Dad I guess I should get busy doing something, not sure what, but something.

I miss you so much.

Love you,

April

Home isn't home anymore

     I wake every more still expecting to hear your voice or the sound of the TV letting me know you were awake. I look outside at the yard and remember the times I would watch you mow the yard, sometimes being woken by the sound of the lawnmower as it passed my window.

     I look at the garrage and remember how you would sit out there for hours just piddling. How neat everything was and now all I see is a mess. I'm told it will be cleared out and it will look as it did, but then in the next breath how things will be added so your son - my brother - can have a man cave. Not that I care, but another sign that everything is changing and will never be the same again.

    I walk into your room and I see someone else's things, but still remember when your things were there and my heart aches. I have what few clothes you had hanging in my closet and I can still smell your scent on them.
 
    I wore your tan jacket a couple of times - the one you always wore and you gave to me just before you closed your eyes for good - and I could smell your scent on that as well. It brought me so much comfort, but it made me miss you that much more. Than I realized if I kept wearing it that I would lose that smell and so I have it safely tucked in my closet with the rest of your things.  I have your personal effects in that storage foot stool I bought for you.  Not long after your passing I was looking through the box you gave me and I found the letters you left for us. I can't tell you how much that meant finding them. It was as  if you were still watching over us all.

   As I walk around the house, I see everything as it was when you were here, but changing now. Someone's else things lie around and makes the house I once called ours someone elses. It's so hard to watch these changes, but knowing they are necessary. I want things as they were, but know they never will be again.

   I try to go on with my life, to find meaning in it once again, but it seems to be eluding me. Talking about you is not an option. It is too painful for everyone else who loves you and so I keep my feelings bottled up inside me.

     When I pull in the driveway now that sense of home is gone and I know it is just a place for me to lay my head. I have lost my sense of purpose, my pillar of strength and I know I will never have that again.

       In essence, what I am trying to say is...I love you and Miss you.  I promised you the night you left that I would be OK and I will, it will just take a little more time. In the meantime I will continue to remember you doing what you enjoyed.

                                                             

                                                                 I LOVE YOU DAD!!!

Changes

I have wiped my Dad's name out of existence and him as well or so it feels to me. 

I went to the tag office and transferred the title of the car from my Dad's name to mine - at the cost of 608.38, but on the upside I will only have to pay twenty dollars a year for my tag for now on - then I went to the bank and took his name of the account. 

I know these are all necessary things, but I feel as if I am losing him all over again. With going with the new plan on Vehicle taxes I received the new Ga tag - again something under my father's name changed. I have kept the old tag - I took the stamp off - and it now sits in my room.

It probably seems silly to most that I would hold on to something like a tag, but to me it's just another sign that my father is truly gone. 

In a way it feels as if his passing as been longer than it actually has been. In reality he has only been gone a little over a month - the fourth of August will be two. 

I try to remember what Dad wanted and I have done the best I can, but on days like today where I have to remove another thing that showed he lived...Well, it's hard not to ball up in a ball and cry. So, I will just cry and try to remember that even though his physical presence is no longer here, his memory is and it always will be with me.

I went through this process once before many years ago with my mother. I was much younger than and I thought I had lost everything the day she passed away, but I found out that I always had my father and I am grateful for the years he was always there. There is a huge whole where my heart use to be - it may take another thirty years again for me to accept his passing as it did with my mother.

I will try and remember as well that my parents are once again together - in some way. 

I miss them both so very much.

April

It's the Little Things

A carton of Neapolitan ice cream, an semi-empty room where a bed should be, the view of a front yard or back patio, a dinning room table that feels empty now, a recliner in a living room that now remains empty, a picture on a wall that once meant so much.

It's these little things that remind me of the emptiness I feel inside where I once stood whole. It's the little things that remind me that the father I loved so much is no longer here.

I know from experience that this pain and loss I feel will ease, but never really go away. I have been through this before so many years ago with the loss of my mother, but I was much younger then and I had my father to turn to.

Now who do I turn to? I keep all these feelings bottled up within, because I know others are feeling the loss as well, especially my youngest brother. He always counted on our father to be there when he needed him, rather it was just to talk or sit by his bedside from a accident that almost took my brother's life. Dad wore himself out so much so he couldn't even speak.

That was the kind of man he was, unselfish in every way.

I looked through his belongings and saw how little he did have. He gave everything to us. He made sure we had a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs. He put his life on the line in two wars and served over twenty eight years in the military - Navy and Army combined.

He taught us how to stand on our own two feet, but never failed to catch us when we fail.

It's the little things that I miss the most.

April