Lucky Dorito

It never fails to amaze me how the Lord provides just what we need. Although my family had many moments of laughing after my Dad passed away, as we reminisced over days gone by – after I got back home…. I was overcome with sadness again. Last weekend – I was going through the motions but struggling to find much humor in life for the most part. This week was easier, if only for the *upside down lampshade* poor Lillie is sporting around the house which is pitiful but HILARIOUS. I needed to be reminded that it was ok to laugh again…. I know Daddy would have laughed if he’d seen her bouncing off the door facings and chairs this week. If there was one thing he derived great pleasure in – that was his love of animals. He would have been cracking up to see this silly dog.

I’ve been avoiding certain things because I just am not ready to deal with them yet. I think that is pretty normal, right? This is all new territory for me…. grieving is certainly a process you just have to work through. I’ve always heard that anyway – just never experienced it until now.

I’ve posted over the years that my Dad was the KING of email-forwards. (I’ve even posted some of them to my previous blog that I really enjoyed.) He sent sometimes as many as 10 a day, sometimes only one or two. There were times when my life was so busy, I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t always read them. When busy or out of town, I’d just scan the subject lines for ones I was sure I’d not seen before and read them only.  The rest would back up in my inbox, along with a BUNCH of other stuff until I had hundreds of unread emails – and I’d just DELETE the whole lot of them when it was too overwhelming to tackle. I feel so *guilty* about that now. On the day he died, I counted 37 emails from him in my inbox – six from the Thursday prior to his death. I moved them all to a separate folder so I could read them later…. when I’m ready. It makes me sad to think that I so callously let many of them slip away over the years without even acknowledging his effort to keep connected.

There were a few days immediately after his passing where I was so stunned – I thought I’d never find the words to blog again. I briefly thought… it’s time to let blogging go…. I waste too much time there that I could be DOING something else. But then, the thought of my Dad, sitting at his computer – READING my blog every day or nearly every day, sparks me forward. I saw his tracks in my SiteMeter counter – I know he was a frequent visitor. That he was reading and learning about ME – as a woman, a wife, a mother – instead of just as his daughter… encourages me to press on. (That and the mental image of him reading my crazy *Dory-moment* posts and shaking his head to keep from laughing crack me up.)

Thoughts of Daddy run through my mind often. I hate that we didn’t get to say *Goodbye*. It saddens me to think back to the last time I might have spoken the words *I Love You* to him, although I’m sure he knew that I did. Did I tell him the last time I saw him…. way back in July? I don’t remember.

One evening this week, I had been helping Luby spell certain words that she was writing down while riding in the car. She reached the word *improvement* to add to her list. I was driving through town, calling out letters two at a time…. i-m, p-r, o-v….. when I said the letters p-r, tears slid down my face. My Dad had fallen in the habit of using his initials over the years… which were P. R. LastName.

That being said, it gives me great relief to think that he passed so quickly – without a long suffering illness or having been confined to a bed after a stroke or something. If he had to GO….. this was a good way to do it. Quick. Sudden. Good for him, hard on the rest of us. My mom is the one that actually called it to my attention, saying, “You know how he was around here – always working in the garden or tinkering with this-or-that. He would have been miserable if he’d had to be stuck in a bed, not able to do his thing.” And she is so right… he would’ve hated to live like that for any amount of time. She’s an amazing woman… her strength encourages me.

I suppose this is supposed to be a learning process as well. I’m learning, Lord, I’m learning.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS