Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

It's been awhile since I've written...almost one year to be exact. At times it feels like an eternity and just a blink of an eye all at once. I've tried to come back and write, but I found myself at a loss for words. It feels like it's just the same thoughts running around in my head.

At some moments the pain is so fresh that I find myself tearing up. It's always at completely inconvenient moments like when I'm driving to a client's house or walking around the grocery store. This morning I thought it would be rather convenient if I could just wear sunglasses everywhere. It's funny how grief hits you. Ok it's not really funny but for instance I was afraid of coming up to the computer to write, because I thought I'd turn into some weeping mess and I'm just tired of being sad. I thought to myself ok lets just do it, writing is therapeutic, just turn on the sad music, cry....whatever. But I'm relieved to find I don't feel sad right now. This morning driving to Stop N Shop I was a bawling mess..I had to dig in my bag for my sunglasses, because heaven forbid anyone should see me crying...rain and sun glasses totally not suspicious at all...but now reading through everything I wrote..digging up all those emotions from one year ago that felt so real this morning....nothing. Go figure...

Anyways Dad if you have been watching us from somewhere this past year I know you have been smiling. There have been so many happy moments, so much laughing. One of my clients tells me it's an Irish thing, all the laughing, even at the funerals. I don't know about that but I do know it's a Frank Boyle thing. Because you laughed a lot. When we are all together playing a game, eating one of Mom's amazing meals, I can hear your laugh. When Daniel sits at the head of the table and says grace like you always used to, I can feel your presence, I can hear your voice. And I know you are proud. I felt you with me during the Ironman and all those long training hours by myself. People have asked me "how do you keep going? what makes you not stop?" and I think, if you knew my Dad, you would know the answer to that.



Every time I hear this song I think of you Dad, So I will end with this.




"She says I'm okay; I'm alright,
Though you have gone from my life
You said that it would,
Now everything should be all right

She says I'm okay; I'm alright,
Though you have gone from my life
You said that it would,
Now everything should be all right
Yeah should be alright "

Love you Dad.

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

Tomorrow will be a month since you left this world. Just when I think I'm fine, I'm recovering, moving forward it seems the flood gates have opened and I've fallen over that cliff edge. Makes me wonder why a month is so important, a year would make sense...but a month marker? And then I realized its important, because it marks an entire month without you...just more proof that time marches forward and I can never go back. All this time I've felt like it was ok, because this wasn't real, like I could just hit rewind and go back and things would be normal again. But things will never be normal again. After the funeral, I sat with mom, ok that's a lie...I didn't sit...I sank into her and cried like a baby....and I asked her one question..."now what?". And she told me "now we move forward, we go on, we live". Which is what I know you would want me to do. Its easy to keep up the pretense that this is all just a bad dream, while I'm here in Connecticut. But I fear the drive home. I fear the emptiness I felt in the house without you around. I fear the depth of my sadness.

Dear Dad

I think about you today, and I don't feel sad anymore I feel happy. I feel warmth. I feel peace. I think about you and Connor together and I feel blessed that he got to know you. I promise to make sure he continues to remember you. For a while I didn't talk about you with him, because I didn't want to make him sad or to push the issue. I simply explained to him that you had to go to heaven and that we were all sad because we loved you so much and would miss you.

I know he has some grasp on the situation because he has been a lot more needy, a lot more clingy then usual. Its been rough to drop him off at day care, but I continue to do it because I want him to understand that I will always come back. I'm not sure how I got so lucky. He is such a sweet child. At different points when mom and I were upset, he would bring us candy or popsicles or toys to cheer us up.

Dad

"There is a sacredness in tears.
They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.
They speak more eloquently than ten
thousand tongues.
They are messengers of overwhelming grief...
and unspeakable love."-not sure

"Tears are the silent language of grief." -Voltaire

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." --C.S. Lewis

I feel sadness when I look at my dad's photos, but I also feel joy and love and warmth. I went for a run through the woods today with Andy, and it occurred to me its somewhat strange (not really the word I am looking for) to be so caught off guard, to be so shocked..obliterated...brought to my knees...by something so natural...so ordinary as death....everyone dies...what's that quote...nothing is certain but death and taxes (Benjamin Franklin). This is something everyone has to experience at some point. I remember being upset when my great grand mother died, who I was really really close to. Maybe its because she was older and in a nursing home, because I had more time to prepare myself for it that it wasn't so painful.

I remember the last time I hugged my dad, and now I wish I'd gone back and hugged him again. I'm grateful that I went down to see him that last time, that I stayed around to wait for him to get back from his MRI or whatever procedure he was having done....that I got to hug him and hold his hand in the hospital bed.

Another thing that occurred to me while I was running is that I need to be more patient with the living, because as cliche as it sounds you really never know when your time is going to come. As is natural I suppose, I tend to pull away from situations that could lead to pain. I did that a lot with my dad when he was sick. I didn't always have patience with him. I didn't always make the time to sit and talk to him. But now I would like nothing more than to spend the entire day just talking to him, just listening to him. I'm sure most people put there parents on pedestals...or perhaps not...but my dad was one of those rare souls.

He faced obstacles every day, yet all my memories are of him smiling or laughing or cracking a joke...ok well maybe not every memory...on the rare occasion that he got angry, he just had to give me a look and that was enough to stop me in my tracks. He didn't anger easily, but when he did it was a terrifying sight...his eyes said everything. He really didn't even have to yell, just look at me.

I miss his pep talks, his advice, and his faith. No matter what decision I made, even if he didn't necessarily agree with it, he was always there to support me and provide an ear to bounce ideas off of. Whenever I was upset as a child, he knew that at my nastiest all I really needed was a hug. I could tell him anything, with out fear, his love was truly unconditional.

I am excited to go home for the holidays, but I am anxious about driving down that road again, because the last time I drove down that way it was not a happy trip.....sometimes I'm not sure why I'm writing all this down. Its too painful to read over again right now, but maybe in the future I'll want to look back and remember....or maybe its part of the healing process to just get all these thoughts out of my head.

Dear Dad

Someone compared grief to being hit by a semi-truck over and over again...and I think that about sums it up. For the most part I'm fine, good actually..sometimes even great and then someone will look at me or I'll see a picture and it makes me want to cry. I know crying is good, but I hate crying in front of people, especially people I don't know that well. Crying is something I like to do in private, preferably with some sad music playing. I used to cry at everything, I had no control...and then somewhere along the way I figured out how to stuff it down..how "to be strong". So now even when I want to cry, sometimes I can't. And sometimes this complete lack of emotion makes me worry, because if I don't cry now, somewhere down the line am I just going to fall off the cliff and be a complete mess??? Not that I haven't cried at all, I have done my fair share of crying, but at certain key moments when I felt like I should be hysterical...I felt nothing. Like when I saw my Dad's body, it was so strange. I was terrified of having to see him, but as soon as I stepped into the room it was so obvious to me that it wasn't him. He was completely gone. I felt this extreme peace in knowing that. I kept looking at the body, because it was so strange to see...it looked like him, but there was no life there, the very essence of my Dad was gone.

I know that everyone handles grief differently, so perhaps how much I cry or when I cry is not a sign of me accepting the loss and trying to move forward. They say there are multiple stages of grief, but I couldn't tell you which one I'm in...sometimes I feel like I'm in all the stages at once. Perhaps I'm still in denial...because no matter how many times I look at his picture I still can't believe he's really gone. Life without my Dad seems like a foreign country. Like something other people have to deal with, but not something I have to deal with.

Dear Dad

Random thoughts...

My first thought when my mom told me "Daddy didn't make it" was that she needed to tell those EMT guys to get their butts back in there and try again because they were wrong. I wanted to hit a rewind button and have them do it again only with a different outcome this time. The thought makes me laugh now, because its kind of a ridiculous thought.

I don't know if I believe in God or not, but I do know that nothing in nature is ever really gone. Like that law "matter is neither created, nor destroyed" so you must be out there somewhere Dad.....It was never so obvious to me that the body is truly just a vessel as when I walked into the room at the funeral home and saw "my dad" lying there. It was so clearly not him at all, it was just his body. I've only ever seen two dead bodies in my life. The first I was not expecting, as it was Josh's Grand Dad, and I was totally not aware that it was going to be an open casket funeral. And the second was my dad.

Dear Dad

When I have to tell people my dad has died, passed away…whatever term you want to use it feels as though I’m lying. Like its blasphemy. I know it’s the truth, but still….I look at his pictures and I just can’t believe he’s not just a phone call away. I want to pick up the phone just to prove to myself that it's wrong, that he isn’t gone. When I was home in Virginia, I’d lie in in my child hood bedroom, dad’s office, and now a guest room thinking if I could just find him, if I ran from room to room maybe I would find him. He had to be there somewhere.

I didn’t get to say good bye. One minute he was here and the next he was gone.
He's been in and out of the hospital since I was 9 or 10, so you could say I've been preparing for this moment my whole life. But in a way its even more of a shocker, because every single time, no matter what the odds were...he's always pulled through. He's always been ok.

I had to drive down the road that I came down the day I got the call and the memory was so fresh. One minute I was laughing with friends at a child's birthday party, the next I was crumpled on the couch wondering how on earth I was going to tell my brother that our dad was gone.

I look at pictures of "before" and I feel as though I am (as my sister Valerie said) really an adult now. Like my innocence is gone, whatever that means.I know he knew how much I loved him and how much I admired him for his courage and his determination and his unwavering support but I want to tell him again. I’d give anything for just one more conversation. Dad, you used to come into whatever room I was in and ask me what I was reading, and I’d say a book. You always got upset because I wasn’t more specific about what I was reading. I always got annoyed because I didn‘t think the details would mean anything, but I’d give anything to be able to tell you. I’d put the book down and give you a whole rundown.

I thought planning the funeral, going to see you one last time at the funeral home ect...was the hard part. But after the funeral was over, I realized that was just the beginning...continuing to live is the hard part. Continuing to "be" day to day, to go forward...that's the hard part. But your love, Dad, has given me to the strength to continue. No matter what obstacle was placed in your path, you never gave up and you never complained. In every picture I have of you, your joy in life, in us and in Connor is so evident. My most treasured memory is your laugh, I can hear it so clearly sometimes its as if you are here with me.

It is true, the greatest gift my Dad gave to us was each other. As a family we are strong and being surrounded by such an enormous amount of love makes the pain easier to bear. Even here in Connecticut, I feel surrounded by their love every day. I have been told that seeing us standing together (us four kids) in the funeral home parlor, at the funeral and again at the DLA ceremony was magical...that I believe is a true testament to my Dad, to the amazing person that he was.