YES. I'm wearing overalls in that picture. DON'T JUDGE ME.

I think it’s funny that my Dad and I both regularly forgot each other’s birthdays, but now that he’s gone it’s all I think about the week leading up to his. Today it’s here.

My Dad used to take us “hiking” when we were little. I put that in quotes because my life experience has taught me that most normal people look at hiking as a fun way to explore the outdoors. My Dad, on the other hand, looked at it as a form of torture for his children. We didn’t take breaks. We didn’t take much in the way of snacks, and we didn’t stop to have fun, DAMMIT.

It wasn’t that bad. But, then again, it was. And periodically he’d let us bring friends. I’m lucky that the one friend I remember taking doesn’t hold it against me to this day. Although I did see her recently and we had another good laugh about it. You know – because she’s NORMAL and expected what NORMAL people would expect on a hike.

But sometimes? I want to hit a trail and just blaze. No stopping. No resting. Just go until I reach the end. I think that’s why I’ve been asking everyone I know about trail running. How do you “start” something like that? How many broken bones will a naturally clumsy person like me sustain?

I feel like it would be part of my tribute to him. To get out there and run on a trail. A kind of head-nod to the torturous hiking days of my childhood.

I still miss him so much. I miss talking to him regularly and hearing his commentary on my adventures. I miss his visits and watching him play with my kids. I miss his accolades, because while he didn’t over-praise me by any means, his compliments were always so sincere they had the power to wash away so many insecurities, even if just for a moment.

That’s the power of a good Daddy. And I was raised by the best Daddy. He might have yelled at me for the dreadful “B” on a math test, or he might have refused to give me permission for an outing I so desperately wanted to participate in. But he always gave me truth.

When he said, “You’re not fat!” when I sobbed in the mirror? I believed that he believed it, and that helped me more than I could ever tell him.

When he told me I was a good Mom, it washed away layers and layers of Mommy Guilt that I added to daily.

When he was in awe over my housekeeping or my cooking, it made me quit belittling my own achievements.

When he told me he liked my blog, it made me lean on it more as a crutch in my life.

I still miss it all. The trails that I hated and the truths that I depended on. I’m sure I always will. But I’d like to say that next year on his birthday I can talk about my adventures on the trails. And maybe take my own children out to torture a bit in his memory. And then we’ll come home and I’ll make sure they know how truly amazing I think they are.

That is the best tribute I can give him. To try to be half as good of a parent as he was.

I love you and miss you, Dad. Happy Birthday.

I’ve had a weird 36-hour fever that has no other symptoms than just an incredible feeling of blaaargh. (That’s a medical term. Look it up.) Every time I’m sick I think of my Dad. He wasn’t a poster-board Dad for your typical Parenting Magazine things, but when it came for caregiving when I was sick? He was Dr. Mom. He spared no ounce of sympathy and pampering. Granted, I didn’t get sick often, but when I did? He was AWESOME. I was plagued with headaches as a child and he would rub my head until I’d fall asleep. The sickest I guess I ever was, was in high school and he was worried he wouldn’t hear me if I needed him in the middle of the night so he gave me a jar of nails to throw out of my bedroom and into the living room so he could hear me and come running. I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, and he was still pampering me when I was sick.

I’m not the best caregiver when my kids are sick. I have my good moments, but they are not at ALL consistent. If I’m not rested, or if I’m stressed, I might sometimes say things like, “OH MY GOD…GET OVER IT ALREADY…You’re being a giant baby. Jeezus.”

Dad would not be impressed. Especially when they really were babies.

Other times I’m great. I give midnight leg rubs when Wes gets growing pains. I put in movies and bring refills of fluids. I brush hair and give warm baths. I’m good about 3 out of 5 times. Not as consistent as my Dad, but I figure it balances out in the end since I’m not as against playdates or sleepovers as he was. Also, we have heat and air in our house…that’s gotta make up for a little bit of illness impatience, right?

Either way…when I’m sick? I miss him. Even when he was alive I would kinda longingly wish for his care. Hell, even when my kids were sick I would longingly wish he’d care for them. Especially on the days I’m saying such consoling things like, “SUCK IT UP, You’re NOT dying.”

He would be so proud of me.

I really thought I’d be fine today. I’ve been fine lately. But I guess I’m exhausted since I spent all night wanting to rip my ovaries out with a spatula…so waking up on the anniversary of the death of my Dad and suddenly? I’m not fine. Will I feel better once the pain is dealt with and I can sleep? Yes. Most definitely. Will I still be sad because I miss my Dad? Yes. Most definitely.

So, if you need me I’ll be wrapped up with a heating pad and hopefully getting a prescription filled for something a little stronger than ibuprofen. And remembering Dad while I wallow in misery. Which would do nothing but irritate the hell out of him. I like to consider it an homage to my teenage years, which I spent torturing him with my sadness and mood swings.

I miss you, Dad.

I mentioned once that my Dad taught me not to fear death, but lately I’ve been thinking about some of the other lessons he taught me while living. He mentioned these lessons periodically in reference to several things that happened in his life and I find myself revisiting them often. He said, “Don’t ever lend money to a friend or family member unless you are completely okay with not getting it back.” He would modify the idea for non-money related favors, “A true favor is better given without an expectation of some sort of compensation, even in the form of recognition.” I don’t know if these were the exact words, but basically it all boiled down to the same concept for my Dad. Give generously and selflessly or don’t give at all. If something is going to make you bitter, or stressed, or anxious – then don’t volunteer or offer to do it or give it.

He and I talked about this a lot in various situations in my adult life, and I think about it even more now that he’s gone. I think these things have helped me avoid any sort of bitterness or anxiety or frustration over time or money or services given as a favors. If I feel like offering my assistance, or money, or time should be paid back in kind? I don’t offer it. Hell…I don’t even get stressed out about whether or not I get Thank You cards. If I get one I feel like it’s a total bonus, but I don’t train myself to expect them. Some people take it really personally if they don’t get one, and I think that’s fine. That’s their way. But it wasn’t my Dad’s way. If he got any sort of invitation from any family member – wedding, graduation, birthday – he sent a check. Did he ever complain about whether or not he received a Thank You card? No. Did he appreciate the ones he got? Sure. But he never carried around any bitterness if he didn’t. You never heard him say anything like, “Well…when I sent him a graduation check he never thanked me.”

I am so glad for this trait. I’m not sure how normal it is – but I’m glad it’s there. I hate bitterness, I truly do. I think it shades the rest of your life and relationships if you hold onto bitterness, and I feel like my anxieties do enough to complicate my life, I don’t need to add any bitterness to the mix. So when I offer something? I truly don’t expect anything in return.

Now…did he teach us about being grateful? YES. I try to be super grateful for anything offered, but that doesn’t mean I’m perfect. Sometimes I forget Thank You cards. Sometimes I don’t keep track of how many favors you’ve done for me so maybe the balance is off a little. I think I’ve always paid back money, but I’m not perfect so maybe something fell through the cracks. Nothing major, I’ve never borrowed anything major, but maybe coffee or lunch money. And I often wonder, if those things have happened, is someone bitter with me about it? Is someone holding onto that time they bought me lunch and I never paid them back? Or the fact that they babysat for my kids 22 times and I only babysat for theirs 19? I wonder. Because there are people who do that…keep track and get bitter when the scales don’t balance or tip in their favor.

I guess I just feel like my insecurities and anxieties and stress levels add plenty of hurdles in relationships and life. I’m just glad bitterness over some sort of favor tally-keeping isn’t thrown in the mix as well.

Dear Dad,

Happy Birthday! I’ve forgotten a few of your birthdays over the years, but since you forgot a few of mine too – I harbor no guilt. I think that says something about our relationship. Or about our memories. One of the two.

I miss you a lot. But more than how much I miss you, I’ve been surprised by how much pain I feel over what you’re missing. I mean, I miss you, so much it hurts. But, what really causes me the real pain is the sadness I feel over all of the things in the last year and a half that you’ve missed.

Nikki is becoming such a spitfire. And she is so…girly. The spitfire part I’m sure you would recognize, but the girly party? WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? I know you worried that I was at a disadvantage being raised by you, you often thought about signing me up for classes that would teach me the things you couldn’t. But you know what? Nikki is at a disadvantage with me but she is doing JUST FINE. She already knows more about fashion and style and femininity than I do at 35. But she’s also one heck of an athlete. She pushes boys around on the soccer field twice her size. Not that I condone such behavior, but I really wish you could see it yourself.

Wes is developing quite a personality of his own. He’s talkative and very…VERY…obsessed with all trucks and plains and trains. He makes me sit on the porch with him every Tuesday and wait for the garbage truck so we can watch him get our garbage. He’s fascinated by big machinery. You would love explaining to him how it all works. Both he and Nikki ask me tons of questions I never know the answers to – about how things work. This makes me miss you – because you always knew the answers to questions about how things work. And you didn’t even have Google to help you.

But E – he’s the one that I long for you to see the most. You knew him the best and would love to see the man he’s growing into. And this theater thing? It would kill you as much as it does me. How he has the desire to perform, much less the talent? Still mystifies me, as I know it would you. I wish you could come see him on stage. Especially this spring when he has his first solo singing lines and his first time performing as an EVIL character. He works so hard at everything theater-related. It’s amazing. Math and Science? Not so much. But he at least lets me help him with Math. I’m a pretty good tutor, if you’ll recall. I’ve been trying to convince him for years to let me help him with Math – that I’m better at teaching Math than anything else – he finally took me up on it this year. And I think I’m actually helping!

You’re just missing so much. And each thing in the horizon that will also pass without you – like the wedding in December I just know you would have loved to see – these things also make me ache with loss. We should have had so many more years with you, you should have seen all of these things. I still think about calling you often. I wonder if you’re reading about our adventures on my blog. But – I can’t, and you don’t.

But, we’re okay. I know that was your biggest concern – you just wanted us to move on. Even before you actually died. And we’re doing okay. We just miss you and ache in your absence.

I wish you were here to enjoy your 64th birthday and all of the other things – the weddings, the performances, the milestones. I wish I could call you and hear your voice again, I don’t think I remember it anymore. I wish you could give me advice and listen to me vent. I wish you could play ball with the kids and talk with me over a cup of coffee. Or a shared Diet Coke.

But I’ll be okay. (And yes, I notice I keep saying that. Trying to convince myself too.) And I’m certain that’s all you would want for your birthday. For all of us to be okay. You would definitely NOT want me writing sappy blog posts to you as often as I do – but that’s therapeutic for me. It’s blogging, or drinking – you know. I think we’ll both take blogging.

I love you,
Kim

When Dad was in hospice, the counselor on site (Who – coincidentally – knew my parents when they were married.) told my brother and I the same thing. The last lesson a sick parent can teach their child is how to die. I thought about it a lot at the time, as Dad was dying, and have returned to that thought since the book brought it up.

At first, I wasn’t sure what lessons I learned from the way Dad died. I thought at first – it was a lesson about giving up. Because Dad never even bothered to fight his cancer. But you know? I don’t think – after processing his death and my grief – that’s how I look actually at it. I just don’t see it like that anymore, anyway. That was my first instinct, I know, but even then I didn’t give it a lot of heart. There was no anger or bitterness there. Maybe disappointment, but not even disappointment in him not fighting. It was more just disappointment in the entire situation. That a man who raised two children alone, who lived his life so selflessly, would have to die in that way.

No…I don’t look at it as giving up. I look at it more about a lesson in Weighing the Odds. I’m a pro/con kind of person. Actually, I think I’m just a CON type of person. When weighing a decision, I imagine the worst-case scenario of either outcome. Which of those worst-cases would be the worst. Example – when talking to my brother recently about whether he should run a full-marathon or a half-marathon after an injury he sustained, I looked it it like this: Worst-case if you only run the half? You’ll be bitter with yourself and maybe down on yourself for not meeting your goal. BUT YOU’VE RUN THEM BEFORE, so the goal isn’t that huge anyway. Worst-case if you run the full? You hurt yourself again. And then you’re dealing with that for weeks if not months. To me? Worst-case was MUCH worse if he chose to run the full marathon. Of course, I’m lazy, so to me the better decision would be: Run the full marathon OR sit on my butt and eat donuts. And that – my friends – is a much easier decision to make.

With my Dad – he could have fought his cancer. But – let’s look at worst-case if he DIDN’T fight: He just dies peacefully in a residential hospice. If he DID fight? Worst-case would be more suffering (he was already in SO MUCH PAIN) just from the havoc the cancer had already reeked on his skeletal system, he would have dialysis for 3-4 hours 3 times a week (which he did twice and it was awful because of the previously mentioned skeletal pain), there would be the suffering from the chemotherapy itself, and then…THEN…worst-case? He dies anyway. So…just for kicks…let’s look at BEST case scenario for fighting the cancer. BEST case? EVERYTHING WOULD BE THE SAME. Minus the dying at the end. Basically, even if he was able to kill the cancer, he would have STILL been facing a lifetime of pain from the skeletal damage and a lifetime of dialysis which was already proving difficult. So – for my Dad? The BEST case of one choice was STILL worse than the worse case of the other. To my Dad? To die peacefully in a residential hospice was the easy choice.

His last few weeks after making his decision – the hardest part for him was the waiting. He joked when we asked him if he needed anything about getting someone to speed things up a bit. The waiting was hard on him. But he seemed at peace. He really liked the place he was in. He wasn’t at all talkative. We all talked the first day after he arrived, I guess it was “THE” talk you have with someone who has decided to die. But after that? There was almost no talking. He just spent his last weeks on earth in peace and quiet.

So, what did I learn about dying? I would say I learned not to be scared of it. Because if there is one thing I was very certain about? Is that my Dad did not fear death. Otherwise, the balance of the decisions would have been shifted. If he feared death? Then DEATH on the scale would have weighed a lot heavier than it did and might have counteracted the PAIN and MISERY on the other side. But for Dad? Who really didn’t have much of a view of the afterlife? Death was nothing to fear. I think that’s the most important lesson I learned from him. Whether or not I’ll keep it in mind if I’m ever facing death, I don’t know, but I do seem to have a calmness about it that I don’t think was there before. I think I am thankful for that lesson. I think – in terms of grand lessons my Dad taught me – the one that will probably have the biggest impact on my life? Is not to fear death. I had never really thought of it before the book brought it up again – but that is the last lesson my Dad taught me.

I just hope it’s not indicative of the struggles he faced raising two kids alone. Hopefully we didn’t make his life such hell that death was just an easier road. I mean – I know for damn sure I’m responsible for every gray hair he ever had. After dealing with ME as a teenager? Death at the hand of a bone-crushing cancer? Was probably cake.

Edited to Add: This entry does NOT speak negative about any sort of pink-related support group. PLEASE read the entire entry before commenting. I believe someone may have sent this link off or posted it somewhere and just described it as an entry bashing the breast cancer awareness movement. IT IS NOT. I thought about taking the entry down because I don’t like upsetting people, but I decided not to and hope that people will just read it and see it for what it is: And entry about the breast cancer support network being so huge and powerful that it makes me jealous and long for something similar.

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Did you know that? Of course you did. How could you not? This year the pink seems to have reached a pinnacle of height on TV, license plates, food products and of course: on ribbons. Maybe it’s ubiquity is why there seems to be much more commentary about what that actually means for Breast Cancer this year. I’ve seen some snarky comments on Facebook about how people should give their money straight to charity instead of buying t-shirts or car magnets. I’ve seen emotional rebuttals about how important it is to raise and promote awareness. Swistle did a great entry about how pink does raise awareness while I’ve seen others argue the opposite. I even commented on an emotionally powerful entry the other day that discussed why some survivors or family members might hate the color pink.

Then, this past Saturday, I ran a 5K to raise money for breast cancer research locally. I didn’t wear pink. I wasn’t in it for the fundraiser, I was in it for the 5K. While breast cancer has touched my life through friends and family, it is not my cancer story. Part of my story relates to my Mom’s battle with colon cancer (Her last chemo treatment was yesterday.) But most of my cancer story? Is about Multiple Myeloma which stole my Daddy quickly and painfully in March 2009. A cancer with so small of a community that it just gets lumped in with the other “Blood Cancers” like leukemia and lymphoma.

I was at this race, surrounded by pink, and I was pissed the hell off. Not because of whether or not the pink actually raises awareness or money, but because those people wearing pink? Had each other. They could all look around, cheer, cry, hug and know that someone else nearby had also been affected by breast cancer. Maybe the girl in the pink hat lost her Mom. Maybe the women in the matching shirts were supporting a co-worker currently fighting the battle. And probably? The woman with the pink wig is a survivor. The only thing that I could think about was how jealous I was of Pink.

To me – whenever I see a pink ribbon, or a pink license plate, or a pink purse – I don’t wonder how effective it is in raising money for a cure. Or whether or not we need to increase awareness anymore. I think about how Pink makes me Green with envy because what does pink mean to me? Community. The pink may be bought with the intention to raise money or awareness, but if that was the only goal? It would be better off donated to a charity. But no one buys the pink just for that. They buy it to help identify themselves as part of that community. And I want to be able to do the same.

I want to see someone wearing a…let’s just say GREEN STAR…and know, “Hey! That person’s life was touched by Multiple Myeloma!” I would know that they knew about the bone lesions and kidney failure. Someone they knew, or maybe even they would know, about the bone pain and microfractures. I could look at that person and feel comfort in our two-person community standing in line at Target. Or at the red-light. We would make eye contact, see that green star, and know the other person had fought the same war.

I would love that.

So, while I was upset with the pink on Saturday, it was purely out of jealousy. I wasn’t thinking about the role pink plays in the actual war to find a cure. I wasn’t wondering if it does anything to raise awareness anymore. All I was thinking was about their community. About how pink gave them all a way to recognize each other so that, in that sea of pink in that race, none of them were alone. As a matter of fact, they were probably more supported in their war in that race than they had been in awhile. Maybe ever. Whereas my Dad lost his battle alone.

If I – god forbid – ever get diagnosed with breast cancer, I’ll know there is already a community waiting (in pink) to embrace me. My Dad had to start first with research, as did my brother and I. Because where is the Multiple Myeloma community? Somewhere embedded in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. That group did allow me to raise money with Team in Training earlier this year, but in reality? I didn’t feel any sort of kinship because there are so many other cancers supported by the same community. Nothing like that sea of pink on Saturday.

So maybe we change our outlook. Instead of trying to explain or justify pink in terms of awareness or research, why don’t we just recognize it for what it is: The color of a community. COMMUNITY. These men and women in pink can recognize each other as fellow members of the same team, in the same war. And I can say that from the outside looking in? That’s a force to be reckoned with. And painfully jealous of. When I see pink? I long for the same community that they have. I long to be able to recognize other survivors of my war. Other people who have watched Multiple Myeloma take someone they love. If I had a color I could wear to identify myself in that war? I’d plaster it all over my car, my home, and my body. Because in any war on cancer – whether as a patient or a family member – being alone can be as painful as the cancer itself.

Today marks the second Father’s Day without my Dad. As most of you assured me, it has gotten easier. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about this. I believe I’d feel more guilty if my Dad’s dying wish hadn’t been, Get on with your life, already. Jeezus. It’s hard to feel too guilty for healing when you have actually felt more guilty for grieving since the person you loved wanted you to stop grieving EVEN BEFORE HE DIED. But grieve, I have. And on today, I miss him. I want to tell him about our new house and about me installing light fixtures, and putting screwdriver’s in my ponytail. I want to tell him about MrZ’s triathalon training group and LilZ’s class schedule for next year. I want to tell him about NikkiZ’s first tball season and about how it looks like she has her Daddy’s athletic talent. So, I miss him. I feel lonely sometimes, without him to talk to. But I would also want to tell him how close my brother and I have gotten since he died. About how he has helped me so much in the last year. I think that would make my Dad so happy. He was always thrilled we were close, but to know we’ve gotten even closer? That I often refer to my brother as “My BFF” – that would make my Dad very proud. Once I explained what a BFF was.

So — I don’t cry (as much) today as last year. I focus more on the fathers in my life. The wonderful Dad to my children and his wonderful Dad. Then there is my brother-in-law who is months away from becoming a Dad for the first time. I celebrate all of them today. And am blessed that my children have so man strong and wonderful male influences in their lives. Dad, Granddads, uncles and big brothers. I celebrate all of them today with a smile on my face and joy in my heart. And I say a silent Thank You to my own Dad for all he’s done for me in the past and all he’ll continue to do for me in my memories.

Especially if the items are ugly.

I’ve been holding onto Dad’s backpack and using it whenever I needed one because he carried that damn thing EVERYWHERE. Few things made me think of him as vividly as that ugly yellow backpack. Unfortunately, I realized very quickly that I HATE that backpack. I have my own backpack I’ve been carrying for years and it fits my body perfectly. Dad’s? DOES NOT. It was big in the wrong places and had way too many straps. I couldn’t ever find the ones I needed. Yet, I couldn’t stop carrying it places. It’s like I felt as though not carrying it was an insult somehow. Which I know is ridiculous. So I took it out one last time yesterday and took a picture of myself near the same place I photographed Dad years ago. I tried to take a picture in the same spot but there were no good trees to prop the camera on. That’s one of the hazards of hiking alone. No one to take pictures of you.

Now I can pack the backpack away with the ninety million others we own. And go back to using my own. As soon as LilZ gives it back to me. *sigh*

Item number 2 on the chopping block was my Ewok. This was a gift my Dad gave me for my 10th birthday. I slept with it as a pillow between my elbow and my head for a decade, at least. I don’t know if there has every been a person more attached to a stuffed animal than I was to that Ewok. Dad would wake me up in the mornings using that Ewok as a puppet. “Time to get up, Kim…” he would say in his “Ewok” voice. He would nudge me with it, tickle me with it, and often (especially as I got older and harder to wake) beat me over the head with it. I slept with it through high school and even through most of college. That’s why it looks so little like an actual Ewok. It got very flat over the years.

I had lost it for awhile and got a little stressed about it. I found it shortly before Dad got sick on the bottom of the kids’ toybox. For some reason, as soon as he got sick, I started sleeping with it again. I’m kinda embarrassed to admit that, but hey – I feel I can trust you with this information. You won’t haunt me with it when I’m rich and famous, will you? Anyway – I felt like this was probably an unhealthy habit for an adult who shares her bed with another person. I’m certain my husband was a bit creeped out by it. I decided awhile back on the year anniversary I’d shop for a suitable replacement. One without a face. I found a faux-suede pillow that was about the same shape as my Ewok. We’ll give it a try tonight and leave Ewok shelved until the next time I have an emotional breakdown. Which, as we all know, will probably be sometime next week.

And finally…the watch. The residential hospice took Dad’s watch off of him after he died and gave it to us in a very plain envelope. After I had been home for a few days post-funeral, I decided to put it on. Something felt very comforting about wearing that watch. It was like, every time I checked the time, I thought of Dad. And when I was missing him? I just looked at the watch. The only problem was? It was ugly as sin. And a Casio. Which, not that I have a problem with in theory, but is totally…well…something my Dad would wear. And while I’m not the most trendy or fashionable person on the planet, I don’t normally wear a Casio. And if I were going to? I’d probably wear one with a little more personality.

But, I was more attached to that watch than either of the other two items. And I was very attached to the backpack and the Ewok. So, I knew that watch would be harder to let go of as I depended on that reminder on my wrist every second of every day. So…what’s a girl to do?

Get a tattoo…of course.

The second I decided to get the tattoo I knew what it would be: The infinity symbol. And I’d put it right where I wore the watch. Dad was a math geek and I have very vivid memories of us discussing the concept of infinity – both mathematically and metaphysically. It seemed the perfect thing to replace the watch. Especially because my Dad truly hated that I loved getting tattoos. Nothing would make him more irritated than me getting a tattoo in his memory. And for some reason? That made it THAT much more necessary. I got it done last night and put the watch in the China cabinet with a few other Dad trinkets.

I won’t probably ever get rid of any of those three things, but they became such symbols of my grief over the last year, I knew I at least needed to get them out of my daily life. I knew the year mark would be the best time for it because I’ve been telling myself all along, grieve my way for a year. Then try to do it Dad’s way. I think he would have accepted that as a decent compromise. To give me a year to cry over him and wear his ugly watch.

He would have never signed off on the tattoo, though. But, you know, I like to consider my tattoos as payback for the years he made me do homework…for fun.

He had died in his sleep as most kidney failure deaths occur. As the body becomes more riddled with toxins the periods of consciousness become shorter and shorter and the sleep becomes heavier and heavier. He had a strange bought of lucidness the night before where he told my brother he wasn’t dying and he needed to go home. While we had both read about this occurring as a last phase before death, we had a hard time really considering and instead did the foolish thing and let ourselves hope it was possibly true. Of course it wasn’t. And we knew that. And if we didn’t we weren’t given too long to hope, he had died less than 12 hours later.

My brother was already there in Knoxville so he was able to head straight to the hospice. I had to do what I had been preparing my family for: load everyone up in a millisecond and hit the road. The hospice had let me know that they would call me ASAP and that if I got on the road immediately, I could still come say Goodbye. They wouldn’t take him away yet. We had been packed for weeks and already had suits, dress clothes, and baby paraphernalia waiting in Knoxville from the many other trips I had made in the months prior.

Of course the drive was slow as we got behind wrecks and construction and everything possible to slow us down on the one day I needed to be able to aparate.

I said my goodbye to a body that no longer held my Dad but for some reason was symbolic enough that I just had to do it. Why was that so necessary, I’ll always wonder. I had said goodbye to the real him many times over those few months. When I had hugged him two days before I remember considering this as the final goodbye, the signs were there it wouldn’t be much longer. I had told him I loved him and squeezed his frail body as tight as I felt safe doing. So after that – why was I so desperate to say Goodby to the shell that had once held him? I don’t know. But I did. And I’ll be forever glad I did because it gave a stark reality to the daze of death. I was very glad I had that image in the months to come when I would sometimes convince myself he was no longer gone.

I don’t do that anymore.

I know he’s gone. It still hurts, but I don’t have moments that I doubt it anymore. I still struggle with him not being here. There are so many things he’s missing I knew he would just love. His granddaughter playing t-ball – and playing it well. Just like she did soccer. He would love to see what having an athletic daughter looks like. One that seems to have some sort of basic talent for sports that I never had. And LilZ’s musical? He would eat up all of the stories of rehearsals and set-builds and costume sessions. I know he would find this all as fascinating as I do as it’s something he never experienced as a child or as a parent and as reserved of a Man as he was – he still loved learning and experiencing new pockets of life. He would have loved hearing about this theater community we’re now a part of and he would have wished he could have been here to lend a hand. He would most certainly been here to see the show and would have guffawed over his grandson dancing and singing on stage because he would have been thinking the same thing I think every time, “Well…he didn’t get that talent from our side of the family.”

I’m spending the day doing things that make me think of him. One last time, I have said. I have mourned the entire year in MY way. In a way I know he would have hated. He begged us to move on long before he died. He didn’t want us spending time going through his house (“Just throw a stick of dynamite in there and run!”) or crying over his things. He didn’t want us to cry at all. He wanted us to stay in our own towns with our own lives and let him die alone. We couldn’t do that, of course, but it shows how little he wanted his death to affect us. The problem was, of course, he was too brilliant of a father for that to happen. He raised us by himself, creating a bond between Dad and children that couldn’t just be disintegrated without leaving a few wounds.

But today? If I thought he was watching me I’d say he was spending the day rolling his eyes in frustration. I’m going to spend the first half of the day doing things that will most surely make me cry. A lot. And he would most certainly want to punch me in the face for that. But, as he would be the first to admit, I was never one to ever do things HIS way. He died with the head full of gray hairs to prove that.

I love you and miss you, Dad. In ways I never knew were possible. I know you wouldn’t want me crying as much as I have, but know that every tear I shed is because you were just that great of a Daddy. The little girl inside of me who looked to you for protection and safety can’t forget that easily. And the adult who looked to you for strength and guidance will most surely never forget.

One of my favorite pictures because it shows where I got my habit of playing on the things designed for children.