Thursday, September 23, 2010

It's a 10....

Her eyes welled. She looked at me and said, "Why? Some days it's so hard to hear how much people liked my dad. It just hurts so bad."

Her dad has been in a coma for a couple of years now. Here but not really here. I didn't know him well but I do know that she misses him dreadfully. That I can understand.

I gave her a hug and smiled in sympathy. It does hurt. Two days from now marks the 7th anniversary of my father's death. How is that possible? It seems that it was just yesterday that we found out he was even sick, and he only lasted 8 months after that.

There are days when I see someone I haven't seen in a while and they make a comment about how my father was such a great man, and my heart swells and my eyes spurt, and my emotions overwhelm my cognitive thinking and I can't seem to concentrate for a while. Then there are days that I can hold an entire conversation about my father and how he loved to laugh and how he was the glue that held our family together and how he was the most incredible father a girl could ever dream of having.

Then there are days when it so fresh that I am sitting at the side of the bed with his hand in mine and he is breathing his last breath and my breath seems to go with him. I literally can’t breathe, I can’t swallow the lump in my throat and sobs just seem to tear their way past it. It doesn’t matter that there is nearly 30 people gathered to spend his last moments with him. It feels as though it is my loss alone. The fear of life without him to lean on is overwhelming and any form of thought that he won’t be in my future is paralyzing. This one of those times I would have to say the pain is a 10.

To this day I can feel that crushing pain, but as life does it pushes on. It pushes us on, and we have to make the decision to let it push us or run us over and leave us in its wake. I hope that my life is being pushed forward; that I am making some sort of progress to where I need to be and who I need to be. I hope that he would look at who I have become in the last 7 years and be somewhat proud….

I heard someone say, “Spend time with the ones who will cry at your funeral.” Find that person or hopefully persons you love and spend time with them. It is worth it. You never know when they will be gone.

So let’s plan some time together. I need that. What the heck, I will even cook. J

Much love.

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