3 Years
My how sometimes it feels longer and yet at the same time, feels like he is still here.
November 11th marked 3 years since my dad pasted away. Since it is only a few days before my birthday I sometimes think that I will still get that early morning call saying "Happy Birthday!" The call that sometimes (OK many times) ignored over the years. I would let it go to voice mail and listen later. There were many years there, where I did not want to have that same conversation of, "how are ya Bugs (that is my nickname he called me)?", and the "what's new?", and the other questions that were like we were just getting to know each other.
But today I feel some regret for not picking up all those calls. I know you cannot go back, but I just think man I should have humored him and picked up the call. I think about how things could have been so different with him and I. How different my life could have been if some of his choices had been different. Also, how different our relationship could have been if we had gone down a different path. But these are all things that have so strongly shaped who I am today. Things that are the reason I am on my current path. So, instead I hear his voice in my head, telling me stories. I picture what he would be doing, what he would think of my kids.
The kids and I took flowers out to the cemetery and visited for a bit. They ask a lot of questions. Some of them are hard to answer about where someone goes when they die, or why they are put in the ground. But others are just questions about him, my dad. These are times I pick the good memories to share, the ones that bring a smile to my face. Yes, it will be years before I can explain most things about him to them or even begin to explain he is their "real" grandfather, but small steps. I enjoy the fact that I can take them to the cemetery and that it starts conversations, hard or not. That I can show them a piece of my childhood in the town that I spent a lot of time in as a young girl.
Each year my feelings change and adapt. And I know they will continue to do so. It is all part of the process.
November 11th marked 3 years since my dad pasted away. Since it is only a few days before my birthday I sometimes think that I will still get that early morning call saying "Happy Birthday!" The call that sometimes (OK many times) ignored over the years. I would let it go to voice mail and listen later. There were many years there, where I did not want to have that same conversation of, "how are ya Bugs (that is my nickname he called me)?", and the "what's new?", and the other questions that were like we were just getting to know each other.
But today I feel some regret for not picking up all those calls. I know you cannot go back, but I just think man I should have humored him and picked up the call. I think about how things could have been so different with him and I. How different my life could have been if some of his choices had been different. Also, how different our relationship could have been if we had gone down a different path. But these are all things that have so strongly shaped who I am today. Things that are the reason I am on my current path. So, instead I hear his voice in my head, telling me stories. I picture what he would be doing, what he would think of my kids.
The kids and I took flowers out to the cemetery and visited for a bit. They ask a lot of questions. Some of them are hard to answer about where someone goes when they die, or why they are put in the ground. But others are just questions about him, my dad. These are times I pick the good memories to share, the ones that bring a smile to my face. Yes, it will be years before I can explain most things about him to them or even begin to explain he is their "real" grandfather, but small steps. I enjoy the fact that I can take them to the cemetery and that it starts conversations, hard or not. That I can show them a piece of my childhood in the town that I spent a lot of time in as a young girl.
Each year my feelings change and adapt. And I know they will continue to do so. It is all part of the process.
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