As I'm leaving for Norway tomorrow, and I will be there until Sunday, I feel compelled to write something that I have been giving a great deal of consideration for a long time now.
Dear Daddy,
On Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 5:05 pm (Eastern Standard Time) it will be twelve years since you lost your battle with cancer. It will be twelve years since my big, strong, courageous Daddy gave up his last breath. Sometimes it feel like you took me with you when you went. Sometimes it feel like I can't even go on another minute for the sadness of the whole thing. And then I remember how badly you wanted to live, how desperately you loved life, and clung to it with every fiber of your being.
Life was a gift for you. You never took it for granted, even before you were diagnosed with cancer. I remember when you scooped the little baby cardinal out of the pool one summer and cradled it and quickly fashioned a make-shift nest to stow in the pine trees so that its mom would her it calling to her and she would come rescue it. You had such respect for life, and such an understanding of nature. I miss playing basketball with you, when you would lift me up so high so that I could make a dunk. I remember the time you let me ride my bike by myself on the sidewalk around the neighbourhood for the first time, but you had to drive alongside me the whole way. Some woman pulled over and asked me if you were bothering me and I casually replied "no, that's just my dad."
I loved everything about you, your thinning grey hair, your blue-yellow eyes, your bright smile. You were all legs, just about the tallest man I've ever met in my life. It doesn't seem fair that cancer could come and steal such a healthy and wonderful person.
I was in the flower garden on the side of the house when you told me you were sick. The tulips had just come in and the air was fresh and rich with spring. We had just moved to the new house, it didn't seem fair that you should get sick.
I remember being in the kitchen, many months later, when mom told me you were dying. No one ever candy-coated the issue for me, no one ever treated me like a child. I would go up to your bedroom every day after school and lay with you and Candy, reading or watching videos or just talking. I was so scared to let you out of my sight.
When you went to the palliative care unit at Hartford Hospital, we all knew you were very near the end. Ducky and Candy took it the hardest, they loved you so much. Ducky died within a week of you, she couldn't bear to live in a world without you. I know Ducky is curled up on your shoulder, I bet you can hardly get the darn cat off of you. It took Candy eight years to follow you home, but I know she's sprawled out across your lap right now, like any giant overfed black lab.
It's a lot easier to pretend like it doesn't hurt that you died, as I imagine it's easier to pretend that a lot of things in life don't hurt. But it does hurt that you died. It hurts every single day of my life. It hurts every single day of mom's life. It hurts every single day of Becky's life. We miss you so much.
Twelve years is too long for a daddy to be away from the people who love him. But I know that someday, when it's our time, we'll all be together again, and there won't be pain or fear. There will just be boundless love and happiness.
I'm blessed to have had a father who loved me more than the sun the moon and the stars. I'm extremely blessed to have had two parents who loved each other more than oxygen, and loved their child with every fiber of their beings. I'm equally blessed to rest easy knowing that my mother and father will love each other into eternity, and my parents loved me and wanted me. I only wish that my daddy could have been there to see me walk across the stage at graduation. I wish you could have been there to give me flowers when I performed in orchestra concerts and competitions. I wish you had been there to carry me home when I broke my arm (roller-blading on the ice) when I was ten. I wish you had been there on my sixteenth birthday to hand me the card you had made and the beautiful pearl necklace you made sure to get for me before you passed away. More than anything I wish you were there when your three beautiful grandchildren came into this world. I wish you could carry them on your shoulders, cradle them gently in your strong arms, walk with them wrapped around your legs.
Life would be so different if you were alive today daddy, who knows if it would be different for the best or for the worst. I often say "I would not give just anything to see my daddy again," but the older I get, the more I believe that to be a lie. I would give anything to see you again, to smell you, to hug you, to hold your hand.
My last memory of you alive is curling up alongside you in your hospital bed, two nights before you died. We both fell asleep alongside each other, you with your arm as my pillow and me with my arm wrapped around your stomach. I have the best memories of you. Thanks for being the reason I can honestly say that I had the greatest dad ever.
Love you forever,
Rachel
Showing posts with label daddy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label daddy. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
How Do You Cope?
No one has ever asked me that question before, until last night.
Basically my story starts out with a bunch of twenty-year olds drinking and having nothing to do. But the drinking and nothing to do part is unimportant. The debauchery was only the bridge from polite conversation to indepth conversation.
We started the night out with five of us, sitting in our dorm room, drinking and talking. By the time we left the room we were all feeling good. We went to a bar and I had a few drinks, and by the time we left the bar I was almost too drunk to walk, but I did all right. I can still remember everything clearly, and that's all that matters.
We went back to our room, five of us had become six by this point (we ran into one of our friends in the dorm lounge). We all went back to the room and listened to music and talked (loudly) into the wee hours of the morning. I was trying to stay awake to talk to Hillary at 2:30 am my time this morning anyway (9:30 pm her time), so it was nice to have some company while I waited. We never got to talk anyway, but staying up late was worth it.
Eventually the numbers dwindled and six became four. We were all sitting around in true college fashion, drunk and wrapped in blankets to keep warm in these chilly London nights. We were also playing truth or dare, and since we are all too lazy to accept any dares we all chose truth. The main topic was, naturally, sex, because what else is there to talk about after all?
So it is understandable that I was very taken aback when my friend (a new friend, might I add, who I only just met a month ago) asked me how I cope with my father's death. Thankfully I was sober enough to not cry in emotional drunken sadness, but too drunk to give her a concise answer.
So I rambled on for the better part of fifteen minutes about how people who didn't watch their parent literally waste away and die before their eight year old eyes are clueless as to how I feel, and that it is an incredibly lonely place to be. I have so much pressure on me to be the best, to never cry, to never show weakness because I'm my mother's rock, I'm her one constant. And she's my one constant, so she feels compelled to be strong for me. We have to be srong for each other and neither of us can ever cry or ever grieve or ever shout out in fear and sorrow and anger.
But I mess up, I'm human, and sometimes I'm not constant and sometimes I'm weak. All the time I'm messing up and I am disappointing someone because I can't be what everyone wants me to be.
The hardest part of having to cope with my father's death is that my father was my best friend. The strongest love I've ever felt for another living thing in this life I felt for him. He was amazing, one of the greatest people God ever put on this Earth, and I'm not just saying that because I'm sprung from his loins. He was truly amazing, and a definite blessing to everyone he met. No one on this Earth can compare to my father, my love for other people can't compare to the love I still have for my twelve-year dead dad.
The saddest part of his dying is that his grandchildren never got the chance to meet this man. This man who would have loved them so much.
I don't really cope with it. I don't cry about it and I don't talk about it (unless someone directly brings it up, ordinarly). I still feel like a trapped eight year old, lost and alone searching for her daddy everywhere and never finding him because he is long gone. I guess I'll always feel like an eight year old, lonely and heartbroken and wishing God would have taken me instead of smashing my heart into tiny pieces of jagged glass that can never be repaired.
And that's what I told them, in a long drawn out soliloquy of no tears and no other noise besides the hum of my soul coming out of my mouth.
I don't know if they heard me, or if they know how sad I am and how fragile I am. But I do know it felt so so so good to be asked how I feel about my father's death. No one has ever asked me that in twelve years. No one has ever wanted to know how I feel before. And finally someone asked, and it was the most relieving experience I've ever had. Finally someone cared about me and my ability to handle something no eight year old should ever have to handle. I just felt so good.
Basically my story starts out with a bunch of twenty-year olds drinking and having nothing to do. But the drinking and nothing to do part is unimportant. The debauchery was only the bridge from polite conversation to indepth conversation.
We started the night out with five of us, sitting in our dorm room, drinking and talking. By the time we left the room we were all feeling good. We went to a bar and I had a few drinks, and by the time we left the bar I was almost too drunk to walk, but I did all right. I can still remember everything clearly, and that's all that matters.
We went back to our room, five of us had become six by this point (we ran into one of our friends in the dorm lounge). We all went back to the room and listened to music and talked (loudly) into the wee hours of the morning. I was trying to stay awake to talk to Hillary at 2:30 am my time this morning anyway (9:30 pm her time), so it was nice to have some company while I waited. We never got to talk anyway, but staying up late was worth it.
Eventually the numbers dwindled and six became four. We were all sitting around in true college fashion, drunk and wrapped in blankets to keep warm in these chilly London nights. We were also playing truth or dare, and since we are all too lazy to accept any dares we all chose truth. The main topic was, naturally, sex, because what else is there to talk about after all?
So it is understandable that I was very taken aback when my friend (a new friend, might I add, who I only just met a month ago) asked me how I cope with my father's death. Thankfully I was sober enough to not cry in emotional drunken sadness, but too drunk to give her a concise answer.
So I rambled on for the better part of fifteen minutes about how people who didn't watch their parent literally waste away and die before their eight year old eyes are clueless as to how I feel, and that it is an incredibly lonely place to be. I have so much pressure on me to be the best, to never cry, to never show weakness because I'm my mother's rock, I'm her one constant. And she's my one constant, so she feels compelled to be strong for me. We have to be srong for each other and neither of us can ever cry or ever grieve or ever shout out in fear and sorrow and anger.
But I mess up, I'm human, and sometimes I'm not constant and sometimes I'm weak. All the time I'm messing up and I am disappointing someone because I can't be what everyone wants me to be.
The hardest part of having to cope with my father's death is that my father was my best friend. The strongest love I've ever felt for another living thing in this life I felt for him. He was amazing, one of the greatest people God ever put on this Earth, and I'm not just saying that because I'm sprung from his loins. He was truly amazing, and a definite blessing to everyone he met. No one on this Earth can compare to my father, my love for other people can't compare to the love I still have for my twelve-year dead dad.
The saddest part of his dying is that his grandchildren never got the chance to meet this man. This man who would have loved them so much.
I don't really cope with it. I don't cry about it and I don't talk about it (unless someone directly brings it up, ordinarly). I still feel like a trapped eight year old, lost and alone searching for her daddy everywhere and never finding him because he is long gone. I guess I'll always feel like an eight year old, lonely and heartbroken and wishing God would have taken me instead of smashing my heart into tiny pieces of jagged glass that can never be repaired.
And that's what I told them, in a long drawn out soliloquy of no tears and no other noise besides the hum of my soul coming out of my mouth.
I don't know if they heard me, or if they know how sad I am and how fragile I am. But I do know it felt so so so good to be asked how I feel about my father's death. No one has ever asked me that in twelve years. No one has ever wanted to know how I feel before. And finally someone asked, and it was the most relieving experience I've ever had. Finally someone cared about me and my ability to handle something no eight year old should ever have to handle. I just felt so good.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Fall
It has become apparent that fall has, at long last, arrived in London.
Much to my dismay, might I add, since I enjoy wearing short pants all year for the most part. The air is getting damp, the leaves are sweeping to the ground in little orange and red puddles. The evenings are chilly, and the bottoms of my jeans are often wet and grainy from being dragged all over the city.
It's almost not fair to have to sit in rooms and read about people who are very much alive in the pages of hundred year old texts, people who did things and loved and lived and lived, and we are cooped up and confined to a classroom and a white board, or a power point slide show or a visit to a museum where the professor will butcher a piece that otherwise would have brought a tear to your eye.
Fall always reminds me of walking to my house after school. The bus dropped me off a block away from my house, and I always remember the sudden surge of excitement at the end of the day when the last bell would ring and then that feeling of disappointment, sitting on the bus and bouncing up and down up and down and knowing it would all have to be done again tomorrow.
Walking home in the fall is particularly vibrant in my memory, probably because there are so many smells in the fall. I think there are far more fall smells than spring smells even. There's the smell of leaves, leaves that you couldn't smell all spring and summer and now that they have made their way to the ground you finally get a good wiff. And then there is rain. It rains a lot in the fall, at least in the Northeast (and in London, it is very very damp), and the smell of the rain falling from the sky, clinging desparately to the bare tree branches and the few remaining leaves. It's all very romantic.
I remember walking home and having nothing better to do than to have conversations with myself (this was before I had a car and I would just turn the stereo on high to drown out the thoughts in my head). Inner conversations of course, I'm not the crazy lady who talks out loud to herself (not yet anyway). I'd think about everything from algebra to charlemagne to why life was so hard to how I didn't think I could do it all over again tomorrow. High school was such a drag.
Sometimes while I was walking, I would look around and notice that I was all alone. I live in a bedroom community, my friends and my teachers and my mother know me, but none of my neighbours even know my name. I would feel so utterly alone. And then there would be a gentle breeze, and the leaves would all start to rustle. The leaves would be swept up with the wind, and they would kind of march alongside me, the breeze pushing them along.
The leaves walking alongside me in the gentle fall breeze always made me feel like I wasn't alone, like it was worth it to get up and do it all again tomorrow. I would cut through my backyard, which opens out onto a side-street, and slosh through the muddy grass. The leaves wouldn't roll alongside me in the grass, but it was okay because the gentle breeze remained and, not unlike the warm hugs of summer, the cool breezes of fall are also friendly and gentle in their own way.
It's strange to look back on times like those and think of how insignificant they felt then, and what lasting memories they have become.
I never feel alone in the fall. I feel like someone is watching me, a lot of the time, specifically in the fall, and I can't help but wonder if it isn't my daddy watching me, knowing that these months are the hardest for mom and I to get through. This year will be twelve years since he died. I always say I wouldn't give anything to see him again, to hear his voice, to touch his scratchy face, to play one round of basketball with him, but secretly I would. I know he's in the leaves, he's in the trees, he's in every raindrop and every muddied blade of grass. He's everywhere I am, everywhere I've been and everywhere I'm going. But it doesn't make me miss him any less.
I know it's just me being wishful and hoping that my daddy is watching over me, but I know it's just my heart and my mind playing tricks on me, hoping to see him walking up the path, open the door and catch my eight year old self flying into his waiting arms.
But it's just the breeze, and just the leaves rustling in the gentle changing of the weather. The sky is getting grey and the days are getting shorter. Soon it will be winter, and there will be frost on the bare tree limbs and the flowers will all be long dead.
I do miss being alone and introspective, I hope that there are still lonely and introspective teenagers out there, and that they don't feel so alone when they feel gentle breezes or rain drops that fall on bare cheeks. I hope no one feels so lonely when they hear the leaves rustling in the wind, and that everyone has a marvelously beautiful fall, wherever you are.
Much to my dismay, might I add, since I enjoy wearing short pants all year for the most part. The air is getting damp, the leaves are sweeping to the ground in little orange and red puddles. The evenings are chilly, and the bottoms of my jeans are often wet and grainy from being dragged all over the city.
It's almost not fair to have to sit in rooms and read about people who are very much alive in the pages of hundred year old texts, people who did things and loved and lived and lived, and we are cooped up and confined to a classroom and a white board, or a power point slide show or a visit to a museum where the professor will butcher a piece that otherwise would have brought a tear to your eye.
Fall always reminds me of walking to my house after school. The bus dropped me off a block away from my house, and I always remember the sudden surge of excitement at the end of the day when the last bell would ring and then that feeling of disappointment, sitting on the bus and bouncing up and down up and down and knowing it would all have to be done again tomorrow.
Walking home in the fall is particularly vibrant in my memory, probably because there are so many smells in the fall. I think there are far more fall smells than spring smells even. There's the smell of leaves, leaves that you couldn't smell all spring and summer and now that they have made their way to the ground you finally get a good wiff. And then there is rain. It rains a lot in the fall, at least in the Northeast (and in London, it is very very damp), and the smell of the rain falling from the sky, clinging desparately to the bare tree branches and the few remaining leaves. It's all very romantic.
I remember walking home and having nothing better to do than to have conversations with myself (this was before I had a car and I would just turn the stereo on high to drown out the thoughts in my head). Inner conversations of course, I'm not the crazy lady who talks out loud to herself (not yet anyway). I'd think about everything from algebra to charlemagne to why life was so hard to how I didn't think I could do it all over again tomorrow. High school was such a drag.
Sometimes while I was walking, I would look around and notice that I was all alone. I live in a bedroom community, my friends and my teachers and my mother know me, but none of my neighbours even know my name. I would feel so utterly alone. And then there would be a gentle breeze, and the leaves would all start to rustle. The leaves would be swept up with the wind, and they would kind of march alongside me, the breeze pushing them along.
The leaves walking alongside me in the gentle fall breeze always made me feel like I wasn't alone, like it was worth it to get up and do it all again tomorrow. I would cut through my backyard, which opens out onto a side-street, and slosh through the muddy grass. The leaves wouldn't roll alongside me in the grass, but it was okay because the gentle breeze remained and, not unlike the warm hugs of summer, the cool breezes of fall are also friendly and gentle in their own way.
It's strange to look back on times like those and think of how insignificant they felt then, and what lasting memories they have become.
I never feel alone in the fall. I feel like someone is watching me, a lot of the time, specifically in the fall, and I can't help but wonder if it isn't my daddy watching me, knowing that these months are the hardest for mom and I to get through. This year will be twelve years since he died. I always say I wouldn't give anything to see him again, to hear his voice, to touch his scratchy face, to play one round of basketball with him, but secretly I would. I know he's in the leaves, he's in the trees, he's in every raindrop and every muddied blade of grass. He's everywhere I am, everywhere I've been and everywhere I'm going. But it doesn't make me miss him any less.
I know it's just me being wishful and hoping that my daddy is watching over me, but I know it's just my heart and my mind playing tricks on me, hoping to see him walking up the path, open the door and catch my eight year old self flying into his waiting arms.
But it's just the breeze, and just the leaves rustling in the gentle changing of the weather. The sky is getting grey and the days are getting shorter. Soon it will be winter, and there will be frost on the bare tree limbs and the flowers will all be long dead.
I do miss being alone and introspective, I hope that there are still lonely and introspective teenagers out there, and that they don't feel so alone when they feel gentle breezes or rain drops that fall on bare cheeks. I hope no one feels so lonely when they hear the leaves rustling in the wind, and that everyone has a marvelously beautiful fall, wherever you are.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Happy Father's Day
It's a day late, but happy Father's Day to everyone out there.
Please please pleaseee hug your fathers while you can, you never know when the last time will be.
Twelve years ago I said happy Father's Day to my daddy for the last time (well, truly I tell him happy Father's Day every year, but he, unfortunately, isn't here to hear me). I'd give almost anything to hug my daddy, for him to play basketball with me again, for him to have a cup of tea with me and my sister, for him to be able to hold his grandchildren.
Just please, call your father, talk to him, hug him. Hug him tight.
Please please pleaseee hug your fathers while you can, you never know when the last time will be.
Twelve years ago I said happy Father's Day to my daddy for the last time (well, truly I tell him happy Father's Day every year, but he, unfortunately, isn't here to hear me). I'd give almost anything to hug my daddy, for him to play basketball with me again, for him to have a cup of tea with me and my sister, for him to be able to hold his grandchildren.
Just please, call your father, talk to him, hug him. Hug him tight.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Live and Live and Live
Fight hate with love. Fight death with life.
I went to bed at 8:30 this morning and woke up at 1:30 this afternoon, almost positive that depression was setting in. I blame myself for his death in many ways. I don't have a magic cancer wand that I waved to get him sick, but I was little and a lot of it I didn't understand, didn't want to understand. I wasn't in the room when he died, but I felt it down the hall in the kitchen with my uncles, drinking beer and talking old times. "How's your father?" "Good, I said," and went back to his room. I felt him die in my heart between the kitchen and his hospital room.
I didn't understand that they wanted him to be cremated. I wanted him to be put in the ground with flowers and grass and a headstone that I could visit. I visit George in the winter now, this year will be two years, and I touch the frozen earth with my fingertips, the same fingertips that whisper sad notes from my violin. Cancer took two of the greatest men I ever knew.
I listened to the hum of the machines, the whirring and the silent salty tears that dropped onto the bed sheets and the carpet and the windowsill. Circle of Life came on the radio and then, by the son's end, he was gone.
I miss the jokes he used to tell more than anything, and the way he smelled when he hugged me, and the sound of his voice calling my name from across the yard.
I just want to live and live and live and never have to deal with the consequence of life. I want to love and love and love and never have to face the reality of hate.
I went to bed at 8:30 this morning and woke up at 1:30 this afternoon, almost positive that depression was setting in. I blame myself for his death in many ways. I don't have a magic cancer wand that I waved to get him sick, but I was little and a lot of it I didn't understand, didn't want to understand. I wasn't in the room when he died, but I felt it down the hall in the kitchen with my uncles, drinking beer and talking old times. "How's your father?" "Good, I said," and went back to his room. I felt him die in my heart between the kitchen and his hospital room.
I didn't understand that they wanted him to be cremated. I wanted him to be put in the ground with flowers and grass and a headstone that I could visit. I visit George in the winter now, this year will be two years, and I touch the frozen earth with my fingertips, the same fingertips that whisper sad notes from my violin. Cancer took two of the greatest men I ever knew.
I listened to the hum of the machines, the whirring and the silent salty tears that dropped onto the bed sheets and the carpet and the windowsill. Circle of Life came on the radio and then, by the son's end, he was gone.
I miss the jokes he used to tell more than anything, and the way he smelled when he hugged me, and the sound of his voice calling my name from across the yard.
I just want to live and live and live and never have to deal with the consequence of life. I want to love and love and love and never have to face the reality of hate.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Still Numb After All These Years
Friday is the eleven year anniversary of my father's death.
Cancer doesn't know about daddies, or moms, or brothers and sisters, or grandmothers, or uncles, or cats or dogs. Cancer knows life, and it will stop at nothing to destroy it.
I watched for two years as my father slowly wasted away, and eventually died right before my eyes. I felt his hand soften in mine and go limp; his hands that held me high in the air, that tossed baseballs for me, that sewed patches to my girl scout vest.
I often wonder what our lives would be like today if he had never died, if he had never been sick. So much of my life and my mother's life and my sister's life is a response to his sickness and death.
I can't help but feel like I'm always missing something. I miss the man who told his seven year old daughter fart jokes, who lifted me up so I could dunk a basketball, who danced with me on his feet in the kitchen, who held my mother close and wished he never had to let go. He didn't want to have to let go. He loved life so so so much and he had the world to live for. I've come to terms with it over the last eleven years in my own way, in the smiles of his grandchildren, whenever the leaves rustle on a breezy day, when the air is still and the world is quiet, when someone's eyes say "I love you," when my hand feels warm on a cold winter day, and I know my daddy is there with me.
But I wish he could see us now, see how far we've come, see how much we love life even in his long absense. I know that he sees us, but I wish he were here experiencing this amazing life with us.
It doesn't get easier, it never gets easier. There are dozens of things I wish I could tell him, tons of things I want him to say to me. I wish I could see him hold his grandchildren. I wish he could hold my mother's hand one more time. I wish I could dance on his feet in the kitchen again.
It's just not fair.
Cancer doesn't know about daddies, or moms, or brothers and sisters, or grandmothers, or uncles, or cats or dogs. Cancer knows life, and it will stop at nothing to destroy it.
I watched for two years as my father slowly wasted away, and eventually died right before my eyes. I felt his hand soften in mine and go limp; his hands that held me high in the air, that tossed baseballs for me, that sewed patches to my girl scout vest.
I often wonder what our lives would be like today if he had never died, if he had never been sick. So much of my life and my mother's life and my sister's life is a response to his sickness and death.
I can't help but feel like I'm always missing something. I miss the man who told his seven year old daughter fart jokes, who lifted me up so I could dunk a basketball, who danced with me on his feet in the kitchen, who held my mother close and wished he never had to let go. He didn't want to have to let go. He loved life so so so much and he had the world to live for. I've come to terms with it over the last eleven years in my own way, in the smiles of his grandchildren, whenever the leaves rustle on a breezy day, when the air is still and the world is quiet, when someone's eyes say "I love you," when my hand feels warm on a cold winter day, and I know my daddy is there with me.
But I wish he could see us now, see how far we've come, see how much we love life even in his long absense. I know that he sees us, but I wish he were here experiencing this amazing life with us.
It doesn't get easier, it never gets easier. There are dozens of things I wish I could tell him, tons of things I want him to say to me. I wish I could see him hold his grandchildren. I wish he could hold my mother's hand one more time. I wish I could dance on his feet in the kitchen again.
It's just not fair.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)