Dear Dad,
I’m usually asleep by now, but I’m thinking about you.
Tomorrow is your anniversary. Tomorrow marks six years since I heard your voice. It wasn’t the last time I saw your face — no, that is another date on the calendar. But in an hour, it will be August 26.
Your final day.
I still miss you, daddy. I keep thinking it will go away. I don’t feel sad every day now, and I think you’re happy about that. I have such a good, full life. I have a husband who loves me and two children who are as bright and shiny as any new penny.
I was laying in bed just now, wishing that tomorrow I could go to the cemetery to see you. I can’t, because I am so far from home. I’m living this strange, new life, dad, one that I think you would approve of. I take risks now, big ones, and they are paying off.
I stumble sometimes, and recently I was chastised in public for writing about you too often. For a moment, I was embarrassed. Shamed by the fact that I am still so close to the grief. Ashamed of needing you so much, still, even now, when I am on the cusp of middle age and you’ve been gone for so long.
Get over it, I think to myself.
Get over it, I hear them say.
Then I think about your last months, and how painful they were. I think about how you tried to be brave. I think about how I was a coward, turning my face from what was surely the mask of death. I wasted those last months with you wishing for you to live, when I should have been helping you die.
I’m sorry for that, daddy. I owe you an apology for that, one that I won’t ever get the chance to deliver.
So instead, I write to you, here in the ether.
The other night, in a parking lot, I told a friend how August gets me right in the guts, how it takes me and twists me and I don’t even realize it until I’m standing under some street lights in a strange place that’s slowly become my home, weeping.
“I’m doing all this stuff,” I said to my friend. “It’s just that I’m doing all these great things, and he isn’t here to see any of it.”
It’s hard to be away from mom, K and AJ on days like this one, when I want to be with the people who knew you best. When I want to be a family. We were a pretty good one, for a long time, us five. We were never perfect, but we always had love to spare.
Tomorrow is a day when I’m home. I stay with Henry, no babysitters. I try to keep my schedule open so he has some of my time, so he can just be with me.
Tomorrow is a day when I will be more grateful than usual to have him close by me. He is so joyful, daddy. He looks so much like you. He is just purely, utterly happy almost all the time, and so loving. He is everything you could ever want in a little boy, your grandson is.
Tomorrow, instead of laying flowers on your granite stone, I will hold close the warm, sturdy body of my boy and tell him about his grandfather, the one who loved M&Ms, just like he does. I’ll tell him how you fed me spaghetti and meatballs when I was his age, just like I do for him.
I’ll tell him how much I loved you, and how much you would love him. I’ll show him pictures, and hug him tight.
I will try not to cry, because that scares him.
We have plans to go out for dinner, to get a butterburger. Remember how much you liked those? Isn’t it funny how Emmie loves Culver’s, too?
We’ll have fries and ice cream, and I’ll try very, very hard not to remember what your eyes looked like in those last few minutes we were together.
I feel so far from home tonight, dad, and I don’t mean the physical places of my history. I mean that I feel so far from the time when I knew exactly what the rest of my life would look like.
But I’m OK, dad. I’m OK, but I really, really miss you. Especially today.
Love
Your daughter
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oh, man. ((you))
flutter´s last blog ..I write
I lost my dad five years ago (surely it wasn’t so long ago I tell myself) and I don’t think I’ll ever get over it either. I still forget he’s gone, sometimes, and my first reaction when something great happens to me, is to tell him. So I do, in my head and in my heart.
This is a stunningly beautiful and evocative post. Thank you.
Fiona´s last blog ..12 more days
Oh … streaming tears. Sending you so much love on this day. The way you evoke family, and loss, and the tension between adulthood and childhood and maturity and saying goodbye … well, it takes my breath away.
This?
“…the time when I knew exactly what the rest of my life would look like.”
Just … yes. I know what you mean. Lovely. Give that little man a huge hug.
xox
Of course, this made me cry and my heart hurts for you. It is amazing how having a child makes you think about all the people who have left us. A parent is a particularly difficult loss but all of the people we have loved and have left us – I think about how they have not met my son or will not get to see him grow up. I am grateful to have both of my parents and my husband his but as I get older, I think about the possibility of their not being around. My dad has has numerous health issues and I get angry at him sometimes for not taking care of himself the way he knows he should be with healthy eating and exercise. Because, for all his faults, I want him to be there to see my son grow up. Thank you for your beautiful words.
Get over it? Never. Keep on writing to him, missing him, do whatever it takes.
When the time comes for my dad (and my heart clenches and my eyes tear up just writing that), it will devastate me and I will never get over it. Ever. He is my rock, my problem solver, my go to when I can’t do it anymore.
But I think – andhopeandwish- that those who passed still are proud of us, and I’m sure your dad knows what you do, knows about the kids, and is proud and happy.
Have fun with your kids, and I hope you have a smile when you see those parts of your dad in them, and see how he lives on.
*hugs*
I can understand how you feel. I lost my dad to liver cancer 4 weeks ago. My little nephew misses him so much and I keep wanting to text him or phone him to ask him stuff, or hear his voice. I keep imagining my future without him and I don’t know where to go from here.
Your letter to your dad makes my breath catch in my throat because it reminds me of the letter I red at my dad’s memorial. I miss him like I’d miss my right hand.
Don’t stop writing about him. Don’t stop loving him. Because I know I can’t stop loving my dad, or wishing he was with me, and I know I never will, whether I’m 24 or 84.
I wish people would just let others grieve in their own way. There is not cut and dry way to deal with one’s own grief. Why do you have to get over it? He was your dad and you adored him and he adored you. You shouldn’t ever have to get over that.
People need to get over themselves is what should happen.
Sigh. Huge hugs to you friend. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Hug Emmie and Henry and know that he is watching them. Loving them and you, wherever he is.
Issa´s last blog ..I like cupcakes
Get over it? How about get some compassion, haters! I didn’t know that we had August in common, too, but our hearts are intertwined. I am so sorry for your loss.
Hollee´s last blog ..Tantrum on a Plane- “I’m a Doctor- and I DID give her Benadryl!”
I lost my dad 40 years ago and am not “over it”. I’ll never be over it. I”ll never be over that he missed most of my life, that he never got to meet my wife or his grandson. It’s not something you just “get over”.
What you’ve written here is so beautiful and moving. You should write about him as much as you want and never feel embarrassed. Shame on the person who chastised you. And I am so sorry foe your loss.
I hope you enjoyed butterburgers and the love of your family today.
Wow.
At the risk of sounding parental – Ms. Chicken, you have really grown in the last couple years and I am very proud of you.
When I first stumbled on your blog you were an angry and probably hurting more than you were willing to admit. I was shocked by your use of words to vent and even more so by the number of people who encouraged your rage.
Today you are using your gift of words like you did before but instead of writing of anger and hopelessness you are writing about love and hope.
Wow, today you shine.
Kathy from Washington state
This is your playpen and you can write about whatever you want, but this is also a public blog on the internet and not an echo chamber. You can’t expect that you are always going to have what you want reflected back at you, especially when you are now writing elsewhere with greater exposure.
It is so hard to lose a father. I know that its why I do Flashback Fridays. Some people are horrified by what I laugh at from my childhood but it makes me think of my dad and how he was always ‘right’ even if he was dead wrong. He would argue his point until he was blue in the face (a saying he often used) I miss arguing with him, I miss him stopping by my house with chocolate covered strawberries that I would never eat because I hate strawberries and how my dad always forgot about that and then when he would remember he would grumble and curse and ask me why I didn’t tell him when he gave them to me.
So you tell us about your father all you want, Love. I love hearing stories about other Dads out there that were taken much before their time.
Many hugs my friend. Many many hugs.
Heather from Domestic Extraordinaire´s last blog ..Giving a Face to Fibromyalgia
Dear Moongrrl,
Did your mother or grandmother never teach you that if you do not have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all? While I may not always agree 100 % with everything that Amy writes, this is her blog and she can write what she wants. No one is forcing you to read her beautiful prose, if you do not like it, you can stop reading it.
Even though sometimes it hurts, I love how you remember your dad in your interactions with your kids. this tells me a lot about the kind of man your father was.
inthefastlane´s last blog ..Summers Going Away Party
susan – while i think moongrrl has a good point, i also take issue with her timing. really, moongrrl? was this the time you had to impose ‘the voice of reason’?
ms chicken: hope you can feel my heart reaching out to touch yours. to write such a beautiful post while in such wrenching pain is testament to…i don’t know what. your artistry. your strength. your love. your giftedness. your capacity to move on and stay rooted and remember all at once.
thank you for sharing.
Amy, I’ve been off from reading blogs for a while…and I probably will be again. But, this post is so raw, so heartbreaking. I have no idea what it feels like to lose a parent and I pray it is a long time before I feel that pain.
You are a beautiful person. I hope to meet you someday. You me and KK and probably several other friends! When are you girls hitting MN together?
Heather´s last blog ..Tiring
hi i too lost my dad just last year its such a completely devastating feeling to lose a father and im also at the verge of heightened emotions and fond memories of my father.i thinks its so good of u to share to ur son ur dads lasting legacies.when il have my own family il also do the same;) thanx for sharing this to us
I’ll bookmark this page. Have a friend that’s looking for a good writer. This might just suit his needs if you’re interested?
Wow. At the risk of sounding parental – Ms. Chicken, you have really grown in the last couple years and I am very proud of you. When I first stumbled on your blog you were an angry and probably hurting more than you were willing to admit. I was shocked by your use of words to vent and even more so by the number of people who encouraged your rage. Today you are using your gift of words like you did before but instead of writing of anger and hopelessness you are writing about love and hope. Wow, today you shine. Kathy from Washington state