February 19, 2024

Not every day is a good day. 

Some days it can feel like nothing is right, that nothing I do is right, and that no matter how much I try, I can't be who everyone needs me to be. Last Friday, I felt a little hopeless as I sat at my dining room table and got shot by one of my children at close range in the chest with an automatic Nerf gun that shoots ten bullets at a time. I was at a loss. I wasn't sure if crying or laughing was the answer.  I settled for tears and still managed to get him to his appointment with no other major issues. It's comical now, but it wasn't in the moment. The entire week had been just one thing after another, between kid sickness, foolish extended family dramatics, and in dealing with my youngest's very real anxiety. 

The sickness could not be helped, nor could the anxiety, although, maybe it could have been avoided if foolish extended family had made better choices leading up to the moment, they "announced" they had a fever standing directly above my anxiety-ridden kid, I mean, it's not that hard in this day and age to cancel and reschedule plans. (Maybe that's just me) The family drama didn't end there and apparently I didn't try hard enough to put other's needs before my own, but in my defense and in total agreement, I didn't try to put other's needs before my own, because it was an all out "are we going to make it to the weekend," scenario, followed by an "are we going to make it past Monday," scenario too, the anniversary of my father's death. 

Yeah, because that's today. 

Last February 19th, Leo got his first phone because we had agreed he could have it on his thirteenth birthday, but the phone came in early and we figured why not go ahead and give it to him? I texted my dad around 3 o'clock that afternoon with Leo's number because I knew Dad would get a kick out of calling him out of the blue on his new phone. An hour passed and then a couple more and dad never responded. I thought it was odd but not worth a full-blown panic, because Dad had accidentally put his phone in airplane mode more times than I could count and every time, I jumped in the car, drove to his house, discovered him, unharmed and completely oblivious watching the t.v. I would scold him and fix it back and that would be that. Plus, I had just spoken to him the day before and he sounded great. Plus, I was due at his house the next day to take him to a doctor's appointment with his latest CT results for a suspected skin cancer lesion on his back. 

The next day arrived, and I had planned to take Dad out to lunch on the way to the appointment. I texted him and let him know my plans and he still didn't reply, but it wasn't odd for him not to. He didn't exactly do everything he was supposed to do just because I asked him. He was his own man. It was odd for me to have a sitter on a random weekday but I did that day, because the plan was to ease his mind with our little lunch outing. Dad had been worried about the place on his back. It looked bad. It acted worse and he was a smoker. He knew the dangers and it scared him a great deal. 

I believe it was a few weekends before that, he and I were standing in his kitchen and he became so overcome with emotion at the prospect of having the "C" word, that we just stood and hugged and I comforted him. It's as if he knew his death was coming. It was coming, but the newest concern was the possibility of it hurting in the end. He'd been in the room when the radiologists diagnosed grandma (his mother) in CT at Piedmont. He knew what cancer could do. 

It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm day when I arrived early and on the phone with my husband. I had shared with him how dad wasn't answering any of my texts or calls, but it was like when the boy cried wolf, it had happened before, nothing would be wrong this time either. I'd probably find him, getting ready, not even realizing that a lunch date was happening. 

The door was locked. Weird. Daddy never locked his front door when he was expecting me and truth be told, he rarely locked it anyway. I knocked a few times and called out his name but no answer. I called his phone and I could hear it ringing inside. I thought he was probably in the shower and wasn't ready yet, but a little voice in my head began to wonder though, if maybe I was wrong. I used my key to open the door and walked inside. 

Quiet. 

There was no sound. No shower running. The t.v. was off. His phone was lying face-up on the right arm of the recliner. I called out his name and I think I knew at that moment. I walked towards the bedroom and saw his socked feet lying, one on top of the other, as he was lying on his side.  I called out again and again and no answer. I cautiously walked into the bedroom and there he was, lying very still.

I was in the room right after my granny died and that unnatural stillness was the same. Alive people move. Their chest rises and falls. Their body makes tiny movements, twitches, they roll over. There's sighs and sometimes snoring. This wasn't that and there were other similarities too. 

I can remember being at the funeral home and the casket being open and her hands looked so unnatural, sticking up and rigid at her sides. The color was off then and it was off with him too. I stood there for roughly fifteen minutes not doing anything. I don't understand why I did that. I know I called his name out more times than was necessary. He never once moved. He never once breathed. There was no mistaking he was gone. For fifteen minutes, I stood in the bedroom, paralyzed. I couldn't move from that spot. I couldn't face what was to come. I knew I had to do things but my mind couldn't wrap itself around what was happening. 

I've thought about those fifteen minutes often and I don't really know why I responded the way I did. I was trained for emergency situations. I have a child with epilepsy, who's stopped breathing on me, more times than I can count, and I was able to respond in every one of those, but this was different. It's not like I didn't know this day would come sooner than later. We'd planned for it. The paperwork was done. The afterwards had been discussed. His doctors told us that if he didn't stop smoking, he would die. He was dying. He had a "Do Not Resuscitate" card in his wallet. I knew what all of that meant, but when the moment came, I wasn't ready. Those fifteen minutes were the eye of the storm. It was the moment of knowing nothing was going to be the same, once I made the call. Those fifteen minutes were the beginning of my goodbye. Goodbye, life I'd known. Goodbye, daddy. Goodbye, person I was before that day. 

Today is the anniversary of my father's death and I slept in this morning. I low-key was preparing myself for an awful day, but when the clock struck noon, my youngest exclaimed, "Mama! It feels hot outside!" Hot? Yeah, right. The weatherman said it would only get up into the mid-fifties, but ten minutes later, I found myself sitting on the back porch when the sun was at its highest point, letting its heat envelope me. I guarantee you it was about fifteen degrees warmer in the full sun. I tried to write in my daily journal but after many sighs, I put my pen down and just sat. 

I don't spend enough time just sitting, but I have sat a lot more than I ever have this year. It's that feeling that you can't really name. It's a combination of a lot of feelings rolled up into one. It's not exactly sadness or happiness. It's not satisfaction either. It's just like a really long sigh, when you're too tired to move and too antsy to keep still. Nothing is right and yet, nothing is wrong either. 

That's how I feel today. 

A few of my favorites have checked in on me today and some of them have even showered me with some of my favorite things. I got a beautiful tea pot, some day lilies, and the remembrance of a summer's day. Josh brought home some yummy smelling teas to try and he's cooking dinner right now. It hasn't been bad. The memories are there. The pain too, but the good outweighs it all. 

Daddy had made it his mission to “remind” me to write because he believed in my dreams. I found a text the other day in our ongoing text-fest that said, 

“Great job, Jess. There’s nothing you can’t do.”  

and I’m finding that sentiment truer with every passing day, because since his death, I've found this inner strength that I never knew I had. I'd like to think that it's him somehow, cheering me on but even if it isn't, I don't know that I would have found it at all if everything hadn't happened like it did. 

Writing for me, is my love offering and he never got to read any of it because I was too frightened to let anybody in, especially those I care the most about, but that fear is all but gone now. Funny how things work out, everything in its on time. Daddy loved living and lived a full life filled with all the things that make life worth living. He lived his life on his terms, never compromising who he was or what he believed in. This 1st anniversary has been such a bittersweet testament of who he was and how he contributed to who I have become. 

It's like that Bob Seger song I quoted when I wrote my last love story to him. 

“My hands were steady, my eyes were clear and bright. My walk had purpose, my steps were quick and light. And I held firmly to what I felt was right. Like a Rock.  Like a rock, I was strong as I could be. Like a rock, nothin ever got to me. Like a rock, I was something to see. Like a rock.” 

I hope to be half that in the good and in the bad days, because I should be the same person everyday, "never compromising who I am or what I believe in." There will be bad and good days in this life, but if we just hold on a little while longer, we'll  get through.

"And I stood arrow straight, Unencumbered by the weight of all these hustlers and their schemes. I stood proud, I stood tall, High above it all, I still believed in my dreams."

Here's to hope. 💙