I think I need to find a therapist.

I’ve said that off and on for years as I suffer through anxiety attacks and insomnia. I’ll go through bad phases where I’ll seriously consider finding a therapist, and then I’ll start to feel better and the urgency fades. I’ve realized lately, however, that I owe the previous years of coping to you. Somehow, having you to call always helped. Even if I didn’t discuss with you the actual issues stressing me out, just talking to you about anything always helped. Just knowing you were there when I needed to talk, whether or not I actually did, this did more for me than I ever realized.

“My head’s not on straight right now.”

I’ve used that phrase a lot lately, talking to family and friends. I’m depressed. I’m anxious. I’m not sleeping. I’m eating non-stop and I’m struggling with any level of patience. And it’s your fault. I drove around this weekend thinking about the weekends in my life I’ve done just that while talking to you. I’m not sure why, but I always liked to call you when I was driving around town. Maybe the pointless drives reminded me of you. Maybe I just liked the privacy of my car. Either way, most of our phone calls were done with me driving around Huntsville. And this weekend? I needed you. I needed to call you to tell you what’s been on my mind lately. I needed you to sigh and tell me that you didn’t know what to tell me. You were always honest that way. I needed you to bitch about the mundane in your life to make me feel better about bitching about the mundane in mine. I needed you to praise me for something. Anything, really, because I’ve been a bit down on myself. I needed you to agree with me about how hard parenting is, and about how many times we’re simply flying blind. Hoping we don’t crash into the side of any mountains. I needed you to tell me it would be okay. Or at least tell me you understood.

Your house is being auctioned on Saturday. One year after you were hospitalized with kidney failure from Multiple Myeloma. Your house, the house you died hating, will officially belong to someone else. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to drive by it to see what happens to it. I’ll probably make someone else do it a few times a year, and then have them report back to me. The Map Store down the road closed. I’d like to tell myself it’s because you were no longer there to appreciate it. Even if you never bought anything from there. I know you enjoyed it’s existence on your street.

I just miss you so much. I find myself scrolling through archives in this blog (Dear Blog, I love you.) and touching the screen when I get to pictures of you. I actually reach out and touch your face on the computer monitor. How cheesy is that? I just can’t stop myself. I’m also sleeping with my old Ewok again. You gave it to me for my 10th birthday. I always meant to ask you, “Why?” We weren’t big Star Wars fans or anything, but it became my favorite toy of my childhood. I took it to sleepovers, to trips out of town, and even to college. I slept with it even well into adulthood. Several years ago it got put in with the kids things, I guess, and I no longer needed it to sleep. But a few months ago, I decided to see if it would help me sleep better. I believe it did, a little. Sometimes I just hold it in my arms and think about how you used to come in my room in the mornings before school, take Ewok and animate him to wake me up. “Time to get up, Kim!” You would say, using Ewok as the messenger. You did that with all the stuffed animals you ever came into contact with. I do it too.

Tomorrow marks one year from when it all began. When I got the call from your doctor that would lead to you going to the hospital, getting diagnosed with cancer, and then giving up treatment to end your life in a residential hospice. February 10th. It is a day that carries with it more pain than the day you died, because that was the end of Dad as I knew you. After that you were sick. And dying. I think that’s why I’ve been in such a funk. The painful anniversaries are rolling in left and right now. Putting me right back in the same mind I was this time last year. Saying goodbye to you.

I miss you, Dad. I don’t think there will ever be a day where I don’t think it. I need your counsel. I need your advice. I need your hugs. And since you’re not here to give them to me, maybe I’ll finally look for that therapist I’ve been talking about finding for years.

Or maybe I’ll just open a beer. And only drink half of it. In your honor.

My Dad wasn’t much of a cook growing up. Our dinners almost always consisted of one of the following options:

1. Dinty Moore Beef Stew
2. Frozen Fish Sticks
3. Frozen Egg Rolls
4. Sandwiches
5. Canned soups

About once a year he would buy a pot roast and throw it in the crock pot with some potatoes. That was always awesome. And then there was Thanksgiving. Dad would buy a turkey, stuff it with boxed stuffing, and cook it with no extra or fancy treatment. He would usually put it in early and by lunch we’d be chowing on turkey and stuffing, sometimes with a canned vegetable or two. It was awesome in every way you can imagine. And I could not stop thinking about it over our own Thanksgiving week. I started cooking several days in advanced. I brined my turkey for 24 hours. I made mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes from scratch. I baked dessert. I made three casseroles. All of that effort for one meal that was no better than the basic turkey and stuffing my Dad used to make. It definitely came no where near to good enough to even keep me from missing his turkey and stuffing. God, I missed him so much. I knew it would be hard, but I don’t think I realized how hard or how many different things would trigger memories of him.

I was starting on Christmas cards this morning and going through my mailing list. I came to Dad’s name and stopped and stared at it. No need to send a card to that address, it would just get forwarded to my house. Because he’s gone. I stared at that entry for a bit just thinking about that. I didn’t need to send him one. He always loved my annual family letters updating everyone, and this year it mentions losing him. Yet still, until I saw his name and address in my spreadsheet, it didn’t hit me that I wouldn’t be sending him one. I deleted his name from the list. And cried my eyes out, texted my brother, and cried some more.

He’s a part of everything I do over the Holidays because we spent so many of them together. If we were in Huntsville, he did his best to be here as well. He was here last year for Christmas, he watched us put reindeer food on our front yard and he helped put toys together Christmas morning. He loved leftovers and never minded eating them every meal for days. He always thought we way overdid Christmas for the kids. But he never criticized us for that. He just wondered if we were ever disappointed with our own Christmas as kids. I lied and said, “No.” I felt selfish for immediately thinking of the Christmas that I wanted the sweatshirt with Opus on it that I had seen at the mall. Dad evidently waited too long and they were sold out. I’m very glad he went to his grave not knowing I still think about that damn sweatshirt. It would break his heart.

It’s amazing how fresh the pain feels these last few weeks. It hits me so hard, brings me to tears so fast, that I sometimes feel as though I just walked out of the hospice after saying goodbye to his lifeless body. It feels that raw, that painful. And I hate it because I don’t want this sorrow to ruin the holidays for me, there are too many other people in my family counting on a happy Christmas. Dad would want me to give them a happy Christmas.

So, I cry a lot…but I also hug my kids a lot. I’ve been trying to keep myself busy with things that make me happy — like Christmas activities with the kids. And beer. Sometimes there are tears hiding behind the smiles, but other times there are smiles hiding behind the tears. It’s the best I can do right now. I can not escape the holidays without any sad moments missing my Dad, no matter how much he would want me to. So, I just carry on. Cry when I need to cry, but not let those tears blind me to the joys of the season as well. Joy and Sadness are not always mutually exclusive, I’m learning. Sometimes the richest joy is wrapped in the thickest sadness because sometimes it takes a loss of one love to remind you to cherish the others.

Dad on the Green Mountain Nature Trail

Typically, I take a lot of pictures. (I know! Shocking!) Last Christmas, my Dad and brother gave me a new lens for my camera giving me an excuse to be really obnoxious during their visit. They couldn’t complain, could they? I mean…they got me the lens…I had to try it out! And I did. Every waking moment of every day they were here.

My Dad hates having his picture taken, and we know now that he was really sick over the holidays, but I have 14 billion pictures of him hanging out with the kids.

More than just posed pictures. Pictures of them playing together.

And maybe sometimes napping together…

But mostly playing.

My only regret is that – since last year was LilZ’s Christmas with his Dad – I don’t have as many pictures of him and my Dad together. And as you all know…he was gone three months later. While I look at these photos and can tell he was sick now, I didn’t think about it then. Other than getting up a little slower than usual, everything seemed fine. We had no idea that would be our last Christmas together. I didn’t know that the next time I’d see him he’d be in the hospital being diagnosed with cancer. I definitely didn’t know that a few weeks after that we’d be visiting him in hospice as he waited to die. All I knew was that he was there with me and my kids, and I was going to take as many pictures as I could with my new lens.

And while I know my youngest two kids probably won’t remember our last Christmas when they get older, they’ll have plenty of proof that it happened. And that they had a grandfather who loved to play with them and a mother who can be quite annoying with the camera.

I challenge you to do the same this holiday season. Do a few group posed shots, you’ll want those for frames and Christmas cards. But just take pictures. And keep every photo somewhere on your computer. You may go back through them later when you’re missing some of that family and find one that you forgot about. One that maybe was too dark, or too far away. And if you’re camera is decent and you have a knack for photo editing, you may be able to turn it into one worthy to frame. (Although you’ll definitely regret not wearing at least mascara when you went to Christmas dinner that year.)

Take as many pictures as you can. You just don’t know when they’ll be the last ones you have with those family members you only see on the holidays. Be obnoxious. Get all combinations of people and make sure you hand the camera to someone else periodically to get shots of yourself with your family. And if someone gripes about it? Blame me. Tell them some chick on the internet made you do it. Tell them I’m holding your puppy hostage and you only get him back if you show me 14 billion photos of your family over the holidays.

The last two days have been gray. I mean that very literally…rainy, cold, and overcast. Since the seasons are changing and the trees are losing their leaves, even the vegetation looks gray. Even the few trees that are covered with vibrant leaves some how seem dulled by the rain and the clouds. Gray. I’m not sure if this is what put me in my own gray mood emotionally, or if I was headed there anyway – I’ve managed to have some very sad days amidst brilliant blue skies and sunshine – but during these last two days I’ve felt just as gray as the skies have looked.

I finally emailed my Dad’s oldest sister yesterday. She lives in Knoxville and was a very important part of our lives during Dad’s last two months on earth. She is a nun so her religious and spiritual position allowed her to be a source of counsel for Dad, no matter how distant religion was in his own life. I know that those last two months would have been a lot harder if it had not been for her, on all of us. She has gone out of her way to stay in touch with my brother and I, she has sent emails and letters and gifts to help us in our grief. My brother and I have both sucked monumentally at responding back to her. For the same reason…there are just so many words to say to her and we still don’t know how to say them. So – after she inquired with our Mom this weekend to make sure neither one of us had moved before sending us something she brought back from the Holy Land, we both decided we needed to email her. And while we sent two different emails from our own individual voices, they both said essentially the same thing: We love you, We thank you, and We miss you. We really miss Dad.

That email that I typed out in the wee hours of yesterday morning seemed to act as a thief of any joy I may have had for the rest of the day. Just having to reach deep to send her the sincere email she deserved, it opened up so much of the pain I try to push down every day. My brother and I talk often lately because we fear we may be past to point of acceptable public grieving, yet we have days we hurt so much we just have to talk to someone. It’s usually a text that says something like, “Really missing Dad today.” Just sending that out in the world for the other sibling to see, it gives us a quite a bit in the way of solace because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the other person completely understands the pain we feel.

So…that email put me in a funk yesterday. It did the same for my brother. I just ended up having one of those days where every little thing reminded me of how much I still miss my Dad and how unfair I still feel it is that he is gone. He’ll never know about LilZ’s play, NikkiZ’s first soccer season, and he’ll never hear AndyZ’s laugh. While logically I understand that life just isn’t fair…there’s no mandatory balance anywhere to keep order established. Emotionally? I just find myself angry that he didn’t get to do the things and see the things he deserved to do and see. He raised two kids alone. If anyone deserved a very long and very healthy life…it was him. Yet – every day things transpire in our lives that he’ll never know about. Things we would have enthusiastically called to tell him about, or asked for him to come witness himself. I’m certain he would have planned to be in Tucson in December to see MrZ run his marathon. I know he would buy tickets to LilZ’s first theatrically performance. He would have come to soccer games and probably helped coach on the nights we needed him. He would tickle AndyZ mercilessly.

But he’s not. He wont. Ever again. And the last two days this has just consumed me.

I woke up today and things look like they’re going to be gray. Again. I feel like it’s hard to get out of these emotional ruts, these downward spirals of grief, on any day. But when Mother Nature won’t help me out with some sun? It’s not even possible. So, I’m setting out today – now that I’ve gotten some of the grief out on this blog (Another thing as instrumental to helping me heal from Dad’s death is was through every pregnancy loss back in the day of Reproduction Hell) – and I’m trying to force some sun into my heart. Two days of this darkness is enough, for no other reason than I’ll gain the other 15lbs I’ve lost back just by eating as I tend to do when I’m sad. While there’s something to allowing yourself those days of grief as part of The Process, there’s also something important in realizing when you’re heading towards dark places that aren’t good for those around you. Much less for yourself. I’ve been in those places before and I don’t want to return…Thank You Very Much. So, I pull some of the things Dad himself taught me about spirituality and emotional health and how it affects those close to us, and I buck up. Today I try to use my memory of him as strength to pull me out of the rut I’m falling in instead of letting my grief over missing him push me further down into it. I think he’d like it better that way anyway.

I’ll cry a little bit more, maybe send another text to my brother, and I’ll start my day over. Have the second cup of coffee…take a deep breath…and find the strength to be the wife and Mom my family deserves, that my Dad would want me to be and I’ll do it because he did it. And he did it amazingly well. I’m confident that there is no greater way to honor a brilliant parent than trying to be as brilliant of one yourself.

I went to Hobby Lobby the other day and wanted to punch the first person I saw in the face. Do you want to know why? Because that person happened to be an employee. An employee who was putting up some Christmas crafts in the Christmas section that was 5 AISLES BIG. Yes, you heard me correctly. A few days ago – when it was still August – Hobby Lobby started putting their Christmas stuff out. And I almost punched someone in the face because of it. The only reason I didn’t was because I’ve worked retail. I was about 99% positive that the guy stocking the shelves? Did not make the decision to put the Christmas stuff out that early. So punching him in the face would just be mean. And also crazy. If I had seen some sort of manager type saying, “Excuse me, Mr. Employee. You need to put Christmas decorations out because I say so!” I would have punched him in the face.

AUGUST!

I know it’s very cliché to scream about Christmas stuff being out too early…and that it gets earlier and earlier every year…and that soon we’ll see it on the shelves with the Independence Day decorations. But do you know why it’s cliché? Because it’s the truth. Make. It. Stop.

Actually – this year I get LilZ for Christmas – so maybe I’m kinda excited to see the decorations already out. LilZ’s Dad and I trade Holidays every year. Each year one of us gets Christmas and one gets Thanksgiving. This year? I lose out on Thanksgiving but I get Christmas. While we do our best to fake it the other years, it’s obviously much better on the years we celebrate Christmas the real way, and not several days later. However, I’m also dreading it. This is the Christmas without my Dad. The day I’m dreading the most in that calendar of the First Year after he’s died. Last Christmas? He sat in my house. He celebrated BOTH Christmases with us. The real one and LilZ’s day. He helped un-box toys and put in batteries. He took NikkiZ out on her first scooter ride. He and my brother helped me wake up the kids to tell them Santa had come. It was the perfect Christmas to be our last, I guess.

So…DAMN YOU HOBBY LOBBY. The last month I’ve been too distracted with other anxieties in my life, and I’ve actually not been staying awake every night missing Dad every night. Until I saw those damn Christmas Trees up in your store. Now? It’s all I think about. Wondering how it’s possible to feel such extreme emotions: Joyful anticipation and Sorrowful dread, all in regards to Christmas.

I think I’ll just avoid the craft mecca for awhile. I don’t need to risk actually seeing the Vice President of Ruining Christmas, or whomever it was who made the decision to put the red and green on the shelves in August. I most certainly would punch him in the face. And I’m certain that is one of the many things my Dad would NOT want me doing in his honor.

I think.