Four Weeks

This evening marked four weeks since losing Dad. I don't know where four weeks has gone, and that kind of scares me. I think that I like the first stage of grief better than the second. Good old denial. It's much better than the next stage: pain. Over the last month I have thought a few times, that just maybe, I would wake up and Dad would still be here. I kept thinking that denial was a strange phase. Hadn't I just watched my Dad deteriorate before my eyes? My family and I held his hands for five days straight, we watched him struggle for every breath and then heard and watched as he took his final few breaths of life. How could I possibly feel that in any way what he or we had just been through, was all just a nightmare? Denial has a way of making you feel like you are a little wacky in the head.

I have to function for my kids. They have to go to school, they need their lunches made, dinner cooked for them, and their homework looked after. But I know that "I'm" not really there right now, I'm just going through the motions, my mind is a million miles away. I hear very little that is said to me. I'm preoccupied with the thought of my Dad not being here anymore....all the time. Almost like a red blinking light before my eyes....he's gone.....he's gone...... My heart aches, my soul is weary, and the rest of me just feels numb. I'm thankful that I don't have any guilt over anything. I have nothing that I would have changed or done differently regarding my Dad. I gave him all I had to give, and I think he knew that. I didn't just tell him that I loved him, I showed him the love that I had for him. That alone, is a small comfort in this deep sea of grief.

I remember a few weeks ago making a comment about feeling like most of the things that I pray about, that I don't get the answer I'm hoping for. I wanted Dad to some how just be okay, I wanted one more miracle for him. Last night I came across this quote, and it instantly struck me that I needed to learn from it. "People who pray for miracles, don't usually get miracles.....But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left, instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered.....Their prayers help them tap hidden reserves of faith and courage which were not available to them before." - Harold S. Kushner

Two weeks ago when I was mowing, I had this strange sensation that my Dad was walking beside me. I remember thinking that if his spirit was near, what an odd place and time for him to show up. I couldn't let the opportunity pass by though, and I whispered to him, ...."I love you Dad."

He may have taken a piece of my heart with him, but he will forever be a part of my heart that is left. "To live in the hearts that we leave behind is not to die." - Thomas Campbell-Leo Buscaglia

I love you Dad........