Reminded me I’m a terrible daughter by saying he’s learned not to expect phone calls from his kids.
He talked for almost half an hour.
I was yawning like crazy.
Didn’t want to miss a daily post.
Promised to call home tomorrow then remembered I had plans 🤦♀️. But I’ll still try to call him somehow. I don’t think he’s doing well, and that hurts me. Even more so because I’m bad at being a daughter.
Call your parents, if you have them. If not, call a friend. They need you even if they don’t need you.
She told me that I had been her rock. She had been in and out of the hospital for four months and I’d been there for most of it. I was there for her because it made me feel better to be near her when she was sick.
Mostly because out of all four of her kids, I lived the furthest away, and wasn’t able to see her as much as I would have liked.
Those were the last words she said to me. She’ had said them as I left her in the hospital, by herself, hours away from home. I had no idea the next time I saw her she would be in and out of consciousness.
I know those were her last words to be.
It hadn’t occurred to me at the time that they’d be her last. Had I known that’d be the last time I’d hear her voice I wouldn’t have left that room.
Thinking about it now I realize I haven’t grieved for her in a while. Not just felt sad that she’s not here anymore. I do that daily. But really grieved. I remain wrapped up in my own frustration and depression and honestly constant physical pain of some sort.
Oh and mindlessly watching short videos on the internets.
I have a tick tack.
On Tuesday (4/19) it’ll be four years since she died. I have to work that day. It’s my least favorite work day. I hate Tuesdays. I’m sure I’ll be my usual borderline angry but trying to hide it self.
But with a touch of sad.
She would have loved my Kid’s gap-tooth grin. She would have loved watching the grandbabies hunt eggs, and my oldest nephew being a goofball. She would have enjoyed sitting with us outside while the kids played. She would have liked my brother‘a fiancé, I think. I’ve only met her a few times. But mom liked everyone, at least until they did her dirty.
I had no idea that writing a blog post about her would be hard. I’m laying next to my my sleeping Kid, writing this, trying not to cry.
The pain of loss, of losing someone you love so much, it never goes away. It is a wound that never heals. And it can never heal because we keep—whether intentional or not—picking at the scab that covers it. We let it bleed a little.
But I will not lie and say that it doesn’t get a little easier to cope with the pain. Over time, you get used to it. It’s like an uncomfortable buzzing sound coming from your ceiling fan. But you cannot sleep without the cool air so you leave it on. And eventually you forget it.
Or how you can always see your nose, your brain just erases it.
All I know is that every day for the last four years my heart has ached and wished she was still here. Eventually I stopped crying every day. But sometimes I hear a sad song, or watch the video from her surprise 60th Birthday party. And I peel away the scab and let the wound bleed.
Doing so sometimes feels like a little bit of therapy. But then I calm down, dry my eyes. And maybe I should start remembering that I’m her rock. Even if rocks gotta cry.
So I was sitting here, I’ve been up since 6am, and I’m trying/struggling to not fall asleep because The Kid has been sick and I wanna be awake if she needs me.
And I decide to do I tiny bit of self care and massage some of my homemade all natural nail and cuticle balm (shameless plug) into my nails, and the lavender scent is not helping my wakefulness. My whole plan was to stay awake as long as possible by reading. Haven’t stayed up late reading in a long time.
But somehow I manage to start thinking about how sometimes when my dad would drive me back to college after my bi-weekly home visit (I was unlicensed to the extent my learner’s permit—which took five tries to get the first time—expired, and grocery and laundry money coincided with Dad’s paychecks) we would stop at this little ice cream stand in a small town not far from home, and we’d get milkshakes.
Dad also liked to count the dead animals, laugh about “shoo poke cat” skunks, and point out flocks of turkeys in the hills.
He also quite enjoyed the “scenic routes”. That man knows how to get anywhere in all kinds of ways. I swear there’s a hillbilly GPS in his noggin with the longest routes with the best views highlighted.
He can fix just about anything and if he can’t do it he know someone who can. He knows literally everybody, actually.
Except the time he told me I didn’t need to flip the breaker to change a ceiling fan, I’d trust him with anything. Almost.
He’s put new doors on our house—cutting them to fit when necessary. He installed a new-to-us window when I was angry and threw a popcorn tin on my bed, which bounced into my window. He wasn’t happy about it.
There was this one time, we bought a computer off my uncle. It worked fine (for Windows MILLENNIUM EDITION) but I wanted to use the floppy disc drive (yes, I’m old) to save stories too. But I couldn’t get the disc into the drive.
So my dad, who could barely read, never touched a computer, got a screwdriver, opened it up, popped the face off , and shined a light inside.
My small cousins had shoved A PLASTIC MILK JUG RING AND A DORITO into the floppy drive of the computer. No wonder we got it so cheap. They thought they ruined it with the millennium edition update.
From swapping out engines and transmissions in vehicles, to using black electrical tape on open wounds, to knife making and wood carving, my dad could do just about anything.
Also that “can barely read” thing? Yeah he taught himself how to read so he could get his concealed carry permit.
Oh and can’t forget to mention how proud he was of his new dentures.
No idea why my daddy suddenly came to mind. I don’t call him enough, and I feel like a bad daughter for it. But I do think about him a lot. He’s almost 70, his health isn’t what it used to be, and after a heart attack, a quadruple bypass years later, diabetes and a lifetime of smoking it wasn’t much to begin with.
He retired after mom died, and I’m starting to believed when he says he shouldn’t have stopped working. Not that he could have worked much longer, but it kept him busy and gave him a purpose.
Thanks for reading this mini tribute to my silly old dad. Had absolutely no plans to post today, but he came up. I’m gonna see if I can convince my kid to come sleep with me.
Here’s a poorly shot and zoomed in video of a cardinal.
Crash Landing 