Happy Birthday Dad

This is what I wrote on my other blog, the family one that is sanitized and doesn't let people know how much pain I am. How every freaking day I well up and tremble and miss my father. I cry today because I think it is so desperate so pathetic that I cling to food in memory of him. It seems so cheap and hollow and, yet, I look forward to such normal behaviors like baking a cake because that is all I can do.

Today was my dad's birthday. He would have been sixty-six. It seems like so much more than two years have passed. Possibly a decade at least. We have had many changes with moving, another baby, and Jon switching offices. I suppose all that we have had going has helped ease his passing. My life is a constant reminder that there is a time for everything and it was time for his to come to a close. Before he died I asked him what his favorite meals were. I knew that I would need something to cling to, to remind me of him long after he was gone, and now I try and recreate those meals knowing how much he would enjoy them.

Earlier in the day the kids and I baked a pumpkin cake with cream cheese (and fresh whipped cream) frosting. The kids helped and were excited to make a cake for Grandpa John's birthday. I think he would have been proud of them and who they are. He would have enjoyed seeing them busy and capable in the kitchen.

Last year on his birthday we celebrated with a large chocolate cake. I assume we had a surf and turf dinner because that is what he had mentioned as one of his favorite meals. Tonight we just had the surf and enjoyed a bounty of Caesar salad, an appetizer of cold shrimp and cocktail sauce, french bread, whole grain rice, sauteed spinach, and King crab legs soaked in butter with fresh lemon. The kids were in heaven and they kept asking for more shrimp and crab.

We went around the table and said something nice about Grandpa John. Theo said, "Hi" and Georgia followed his lead and said the same. I reminded Georgia how much he adored her and thought she was just the funniest and most energetic child around. Kate said that she liked how he was always willing and ready to play games with her, like softball or card games. I told how I am always grateful that he took me to see small parts of the world like Disneyland, Mexico, ski resorts, Washington DC, and how we golfed at Pebble Beach (When I say that I golfed there, I say it very loosely. He golfed and I mainly drove the cart).


Happy birthday, Dad.

Grief is grueling and painful. I continue this blog half heartily because I know that someday one of my friends or family will lose a parent and maybe this can help them. Maybe it will be there to remind them that two years later you will still be crying--and just maybe that is okay. It hurts. It stings. I am jealous of our new neighbors because her mom lives four doors down. I am envious of people who live in the luxury of knowing their parents are there. I live with regret and sadness that my dad and I never got "our" time together. First, my parents were divorced then I was busy with college and raising Kate. When my life had finally eased up, I found myself newly married with three more children. There just wasn't anymore time.

I was driving down the road the other day and wondered when there was going to be time. If he were still alive, would it be now? I regretfully say no. I am still too busy with a toddler and kids being kids to travel much to see him. My fantasy begins in about five years where we go on trips together with my family and he enjoys showing them sights that he always wanted to show me~like the Grand Canyon. Someday when I get there I will quietly cry alone and raise a glass and think, "This one is for you, Dad. Oh, how I miss you."

Dream

I had a dream the other night about my dad. I dreamt that I was on vacation with my dad, similar to the time we went to Washington DC together. We were on the streets in front of some business and he handed me money and told me to go buy $100 worth of lottery tickets. I knew in my head that tickets were $2 each, so I needed to buy 50 of them. I was confused by his request but I wasn't sad in my dream. It was if I had been transported to a different time in my life, before his death, but I was still present and 36 year old me.

I wonder what it means? Of course I hope that he came to visit me but I don't know if I truly believe that. I want to believe that but I just don't know.

Does it mean I need to buy some lottery tickets? I bought some yesterday, but just $2worth.

Irregardless of whether I win or not I appreciate the meager connection with him. I like thinking about him without sadness, regret, or loneliness. In my dream we were whole and in a different place and it felt good.

Colonoscopy

I am having a colonoscopy tomorrow and am knee deep in the prep. The fact that I am having my third colonoscopy by age 36 unsettles me. It makes me feel my mortality, or at least reflect upon it. Losing my dad has made me feel, at times, unreasonable pangs of loneliness and desperation. I fear not for my life, but the lives of my young children and so I worry.

I am trying to take charge of my health and keeping myself as healthy as possible, as long as possible. This is why I scheduled a full skin cancer screening this spring as well as my overdue colonoscopy.

It surprises me that my dad's death knocks me at unexpected times. Of course I feel his loss at holidays, celebrations, milestones...but I never expected to mourn the loss of him at my medical procedures. No one speaks of that. No one warns you that the unexpected moments can knock you to the grown and remind you, like a huge gushing wave, that you are forever altered.

Missing

As I put the horses away tonight I felt the bitter twinge of loneliness. I paused and wanted to wrap my arms around myself, just to feel a sense of a hug from my dad. I so wish he could have seen our home, met our son, been longer in my life. I miss him.

I looked to the summer night sky, listened to the birds chirping, and longed for some sign. Just one sign. Any sign. I wish I could have experiences where I knew he was here. I need him and miss him and just want a bit of reassurance from my father. Life feels so lonely without him. Lonely and desperate.

I can't imagine living another forty to fifty years without him. I hope to, but it feels bleak and I am jealous of families who have time.

Obituary

As my husband finished up his nightly ritual of watching TV in the living room, I crawled into bed and turned on my IPAD. I googled my dad's name to find alot of John D. Linville's. I added "obit" and found him.

It made me alternately happy and sad to see his obit. To see the proof of his life and my subsequent pain of his passing. To see his smiling obituary picture, the very one that I didn't chose. A picture that was taken at his work, from his ID badge. A picture and moment that I wasn't a part of. Somehow I feel jealous of that picture. It reminds me of all the moments I wasn't a part of his life. It drives home the point that I didn't really know him. I knew him as the dad I visited on vacations and a couple extra times a year. Since the age of two, I can honestly say that I probably never saw him more than six times in any given year.

What I did know was a man who had hundreds of people at his funeral. A man that those who worked with him, said made them laugh. A man who embraced me, my friends, my children, and my husband with love and encouragement. A man who loved animals and friends and quiet times spent reading.

I am left with googling his obituary to feel closer to him. It feels cheap and awkward, but in the end, I will take whatever I can get.

Sorrow

Sorrow just lingers. Or, my sorrow lingers. At times the pain is stomach churning. Triggered by commercials, TV shows, the changing of the seasons.

I want to run to my dad and put my arms around him. Curl my body next to his, and hold on tightly. Flashes of us in his living room, him in the hospital bed, fixate in my mind. I see his half smile contained within his chemo bloated face. I hear silence and my inability to tell him how sorry and scared I am. I see fear that I will be a blubbering mess and cause discomfort for anyone else around. I wanted minutes and hours with my dad. Alone. I was too uncomfortable to ask for this and now the moment has passed. I should have been braver and spoke out loud. I should have not cared how I would look or how awkward the intrusions of others may have been. I should have comforted him and comforted me. I should have done alot of moments differently.

What I remember most were his hands, fingers, feeling out for mine and his tight grip upon my hands. He didn't say it, but it was like he never wanted to let go.

If life were a do-over, I would have changed the months following his diagnosis. I would have gone to see him every other weekend. I would have insisted on more time. I would have been braver. I would have loved with out abandon. I would have memorized every detail. I would have been better.

It was Awful

I sit here, alone, watching TV. I am rarely alone and the memories come flooding back. It was awful. Like watching someone else from afar; the phone call and me saying, "okay" over and over while silent tears coursed down my face. Jon and Kate wondering what was wrong with my dad, and me writing "brain tumors" on a scrap piece of paper.

Fast forwarding to his last day of life. His wife planning a 4th of July party while he lay dieing in the living room. His breath shuddering in and out and me running to him saying, "It's okay Daddy. I am here. I will be okay." Following up in front of a stranger in their kitchen, "It is time to go."

Going to bed that night I knew he wouldn't live through the night. I woke to hear his breathing stopped and Karen calling hospice and the funeral home. I stayed with him, shivering in the cold house and texting my husband and daughter that he was gone. The words of my then 15 year old daughter saying, "I am so sorry Mom" come back to me over and over.

I just miss him and wish life wasn't so unfair. I miss his hugs, his laughter, his spirit, his steadiness. I miss claiming him as my dad. I miss him. Life hurts.