March 1964
Daddy & Mother
It's time for me to say another year has gone by without you
here. It marks 4 birthdays, Thanksgivings, and Christmases without
you beside us. It still seems unreal. The pain isn't as intense as it
once was but the stillness is deafening.
***
You know what I discovered? Grief and gratitude sit side by side.
It's still hard to find much peace without you here.
I knew you always had a big presence and it's impossible
to fill that space now.
***
Daddy I know now you had to go. You told me yourself how ready you
were. It scared me when you discussed it with me. I'd never known
a world without you in it, and now that I do I hate it even more.
But, the realistic side of me understands.
***
I still struggle with being told only mere hours after your body had
left our home that I was being selfish for wishing you
were still here. You know I wasn't being selfish, I was only
hurting from being separated from you. It was a horrible thing to
say to someone who was only hurting from your loss.
I know you understood where I was coming from.
I will never forget though being told that.
If anyone needs a bit of advise never say that to someone
who has just watched them carry her Father's body out of the house
and put it in the back of Hearst and drive off knowing you'll
never see that person again.
I have to live with that for the rest of my life.
I wish I had never heard that.
It wasn't appropriate to say.
Not at that time, or at any other time.
***
I wish I knew some magical thing to say or do.
I find myself transporting my mind back in time.
Thinking a lot about the past.
Memories are all that is left of you now.
***
It would be your 92nd birthday today.
I know there will be no fanfair for you.
It'll be only a handful of people who still live
that even remember you.
But, I will one of them.
No one will remember that you were one of the finest
men and I am grateful, truly I am
that you were my Daddy.
I will let that gratitude and grief intermix because I can't
separate them. I don't know that one ever finds
compatibility with loss. You adapt and build up
defenses against the sadness but it truly never goes away.
You always want one more moment,
and that isn't selfish.
It's love.
I love you Daddy and Happy Birthday.
