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.

I started following Katie some time this year after discovering her through Heather. Katie has kids that span a wide range of ages, mothers how I wish I mothered, and lives in Knoxville – my hometown. She’s in a business I think is fascinating and she has the beautiful family I often envied through photos and stories. I don’t think I ever commented on her blog but I periodically responded to her on Twitter. I felt very much a part of her life, as many of us do as lurkers on stranger’s blogs. When I read her tragic article about her addicted son and the recent catastrophe her family suffered as a result of that addiction, I became wholeheartedly invested in Henry’s recovery. I followed every update on Twitter and every entry at her blog.

Katie lost her beautiful Henry last night and I can think of nothing but the pain she and her family is in right now. I know we are all just watchers in each others’ lives, but my heart aches for her and wishes I could do something as the stranger who read her stories and followed her journey. There is nothing I can do for her, but I couldn’t let my blog sit here without some sort of acknowledgment of her loss. I want her to know that her beautiful Henry has been in my mind these last several weeks and that her family holds a place in my heart today.

So…as of yesterday…I’m 99% sure I’m done with everything associated with the Probate Courts in Knoxville to finally close Dad’s docket. I mailed off the last bit of everything yesterday to my lawyer and as far as I can tell, the rest is in in his hands to get it where it needs to be to finalize everything.

DO YOU HEAR THE ANGELS SINGING?

This has been such an annoying and frustrating process. And Dad’s situation? Was actually kinda easy. He owned his house and car. He had no debt. And the amount of money in his various bank accounts fell well below the amount that the Tennessee Department of Revenue cares about, so no taxes had to be paid. He only had two beneficiaries. In other words, this process could have been a lot worse. Yet still? It took over a year and made me cry on several occasions. I thought I’d put together a list of pointers if – GOD FORBID – you ever find yourself having to deal with someone’s estate in probate.

• It’s never easy. I bet 10 different people told me this would be “easy” based on Dad’s situation. And either I really am the idiot they all acted like I was, or their definition of “easy” has been distorted from years working in this industry. I prefer to assume the later.
• You can never have too many copies of anything. Get at least 20 of everything that is official, like letters of administration and death certificates. Dad didn’t have a will so I had to be declared the Administrator, which is different from someone who is the Executor. If you’re the Executor of the will? Make sure you have 20 copies of whatever it is you need that states that officially. Non-official documents? Make at least 5 copies of those and make sure you NEVER send off your last one. Most people will send official documents back when they’re done if you need them, but you don’t want to have to wait on a bank.
• Find a lawyer that will actually help you. I could write pages about ways my lawyer actually made this worse, but I’m trying not to focus on that. Just make sure you have a lawyer that will answer questions, especially via email so you can have record to go back later and make sure you’re doing everything right. In theory, you don’t need a lawyer. I wish I hadn’t had one, now. It was a waste of money he was so unhelpful. But, I’ve heard stories from people who have had lawyers who stayed in touch, answered questions, and always repeated the same information. My lawyers liked to tell me different things at different times which does nothing to help someone who is already confused.
• Understand this: Everyone will treat you like you are stupid. I felt like everyone from lawyers, to probate clerks, to revenue officers, to title companies and medical billing departments – thought I was the dumbest person on the planet. And here’s how someone explained it to me: They all do what you’re trying to do: Sell a house, get a tax exemption, pay your bills – they handle those things every day. To them? It’s common sense what you’re doing and if you screw it up somehow? It’s because you’re stupid. Just go into it knowing that you are going to feel very stupid OFTEN. And you’ll find yourself proposing the situations to family to make sure you aren’t the only one who wouldn’t have known what to do. They will reassure you that it’s not common knowledge. It will not help.
• The internet is helpful. There were several times when my lawyer didn’t answer my questions or return my phone calls. So, I googled. I was surprised how many times I found good advice/answers to my situation. Sometimes just a translation of some of the legal language on probate documents was all I need. “Oh! So that just means I need to sign below? Why didn’t they just SAY THAT?” Sometimes there were even copies of the forms I was filling out with arrows telling me exactly what to do. Seriously – if you can’t afford a lawyer? Don’t panic. It didn’t really help us as much as I had hoped. Google was much more helpful.
• Remember: someone you loved died. This sucks no matter how proficient you are at legalese. Allow yourself several rants against THE MAN who makes you do such stupid things after someone you love dies. Those rants probably won’t make any sense, but they will make you feel better. Trust me.

A lamp my brother made out of some of Dad’s old stuff

Like it’s not hard enough, losing someone. I’m thankful it’s over and we’re just waiting for the official “CLOSED!” sign on the docket so I can finally wash my hands of all of this depressing legal crap. It turned Dad’s death into something more of a legal proceeding and I’m glad to be rid of that irreverent feeling. It’s no longer any sort of business transaction or court session. One year later and it’s finally back to being what it was truly all along: the death of a very wonderful father. Case closed.

I spent yesterday doing things that made me think of Dad. I ate breakfast at his favorite spot, I even ate his favorite meal. (He could have lived off bagels – NO LIE.) I hiked Green Mountain – one of our favorite haunts around town. I ate soup for lunch. I cooked my vegetarian lasagna for dinner because it’s one of my new meals I would have loved to have fixed for him. But most importantly? I decided to say “Goodbye” to a few things I was holding onto a bit too close. I decided awhile back that moving on would require letting go of those things as I was only holding them close because I missed Dad. Sometimes, in order to move on, you have to let go.

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.

One year ago today I received the last call regarding my Dad and his health. The one where the nurse very apologetically says, “Your Dad. He died some time in the night.”

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.