Tuesday's Gone

I have had a rough day. It was a slow day at work. Long....slow....day. Listening to my headphones helps pass the time. I like Pandora. I have approximately 50 different stations saved. Some Josh created, some Kaleb created but most of them are mine. My top stations are 80's Rock, 80's Dance, Fleetwood Mac and Too Short. Good Lord am I dating myself or what. To be honest the last few times I listened to the Too Short station I found myself blushing at the vulgarity. That's new.

After my dad died I created a Lynard Skynard station. Those last few days he was here we listened to his favorite old records on this old little record player my mom brought over. We listened to Skynard a lot. Tuesday's Gone, Simple Man, Sweet Home Alabama, Free Byrd. The day he died and it was just me and him and his wife Cara we put on the album and Cara and I together cleaned his face and put one of his bandana's on his head as his beautiful blue eyes stared back at us. Choking through our tears we told him how much we loved him. I could never put into words how difficult those moments were. It was our last physical connection with him. Tuesday's Gone was playing in the background.

At his service we chose Simple Man as the song to play during the memorial. It was then when it was played that even those who had managed to hold their tears let themselves succomb to their grief. To say the least these songs will never be the same. They will forever carry such a huge significance in my life. After the service was over and I had to go back to work and get back to my everyday life I grasped desperately (and still do) to find a way to think about him, to connect with him, to see him in mundane everything things, to conjur memories of him.....just to keep him alive in my memories. I pray that he will be in my dreams so I can see his face and hear his voice. I would stop and caress the box that held his ashes. Talk to the box as if I was talking to him. I could never have imagined behaving this way. One day in my car after we went to a doctor's appointment he found this glass bead necklace in my car and hung it on my rear view mirror. It swings like crazy when I am driving, clangs around a lot. It is not an ideal mirror accessory. But I won't take it down. He hung it there and there it will stay until I no longer have that car. I look at it, touch it all the time to feel close to him. I got in my car on Sunday and got just down the street and realized it was gone. I honestly had the most intense moment of sheer panic that it was gone. Stolen somehow....gone forever. I had to stop the car. It was in the console. Josh had drove my car the night before and must have taken it down. It drives him crazy. I was so relieved to find it. One of the quickest, most intense emotional roller coasters I have ever been on.

So today at my long and slow day at work I listened to that Lynard Skynard station. It really is a good station. It plays lots of Johnny Cash, Zepplin, and other classic rock. Most days lately I can hold back my tears when I am feeling sad about him. I still feel the sadness, deep in my chest. But I don't always cry. I find myself feeling guilty that I am not crying about him as often. But today, for some reason I cried. A lot. A live version of Tuesday's Gone came on and I fucking lost it. I had to get up and close my office door so no one would hear me. After the song was over I pulled myself together and re-opened my door and went on with my day. But a cloud has been hanging over my head since. I have been thinking about him all day, replaying different moments of him in my head. For some reason today I was focusing on a lot of the bad moments. Made for a pretty shitty day.

Train roll on, on down the line,
Won't you please take me far away?
Now I feel the wind blow outside my door,
Means I'm, I'm leaving my woman at home.
Tuesday's gone with the wind.
My baby's gone with the wind again.

And I don't know where I'm going.
I just want to be left alone.
Well, when this train ends I'll try again,
But I'm leaving my woman at home.

Tuesday's gone with the wind.
Tuesday's gone with the wind.
Tuesday's gone with the wind.
My baby's gone with the wind.

Train roll on
Tuesday's gone

Train roll on many miles from my home,
See, I'm riding my blues away.
Tuesday, you see, she had to be free
But somehow I've got to carry on.

Tuesday's gone with the wind.
Tuesday's gone with the wind.
Tuesday's gone with the wind.
My baby's gone with the wind. 

 

These Days

It seems like the last few times I wrote I started off talking about how long it has been since I wrote last. This time it has been 9 months. 9 months! A lot has happened in my life in 9 months.

In July we sold our house. We lived in that house for 11 years. We brought both our babies home to that house, experienced every wonderful, hard, terrible and amazing thing that came with parenthood. We spent our wedding night in that house and it was there where we lived out the wonderful, hard, terrible and amazing things that came with marriage. We spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears and MONEY making that house be what we wanted it to be. It was our HOME. Letting it go was difficult. The day we moved and the house was completely empty I spent several minutes walking though it room by room, saying goodbye. I know it was just a house but it held so many memories. I was getting exactly what I wanted by moving but it was bittersweet. We bought a new house in a new town. Not too far but just far enough. The house is beautiful and wonderful and spacious. We can have big family dinners and birthday parties and host holidays. I can be in the kitchen and still be with all of my family because of the open floor plan. I have a pantry to put our food in instead of a shelf in the garage to hold my can goods. It is pretty awesome. It took awhile but it does feel like 'home' now.

On September 13th my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He went into the ER with pain and the next thing you know he had terminal cancer. That day my world was flipped upside down. I have actually attempted to write about it 3 times before this but just couldn't get the words out. How to you put into words that kind of emotion, fear, pain, grief? I was trying to fit what would have taken a million words into 400. Impossible. I couldn't collect my thoughts long enough to string together a paragraph that made any sense. Watching someone you love so much go through something so emotionally and physically painful is fucking horrible. I sat in the oncologist's office with him as he heard his fate. No chance of survival.......we could try chemo but.......30% chance of living for a year........you will be in pain.......you will stop eating.......you will lose weight.....you will die. Those next few weeks were so incredibly rough. The emotional grief he must have had. Mine was overwhelming. He must have been drowning in his. I spent all of the time I could with him. I needed to, I wanted to. I wish I could have done more. At this point just being there for him and doing what I could to make his remaining time as good as I could was all I could do. I felt pretty helpless really. Every time I saw him he was thinner, looked older, was more miserable. That miserable bitch cancer was eating him alive and doing it quickly. I was overcome with sadness, with guilt. All I could think about was how I should have saw him more, called him more, helped him more.

He died on January 17th at about 5 am. He was just 57 years old and just 4 months and 3 days from the day he was diagnosed.  I wasn't there. I had been with him the night before until about 9 pm. We knew it would be soon but I never thought it would be that night. If I did I would have stayed all night. I would have held his hand and told him how much I loved him and I would have kissed his face and told him it was okay to let go. I wish I would have been there. I did go to him, tell him goodbye, kiss him, hold his hand, tell him that I loved him, said goodbye.  I hope that wherever his spirit is he could hear me.

We had his memorial service the next Saturday. It was a beautiful, sunny and unseasonable warm day. The place was packed with so many people who came to say goodbye and to support us. It was amazing and so heartwarming. He was so very loved and I don't think he really know just how much. It has been 40 days since he has been gone and there has not been one day I haven't shed a tear or 1000 thinking of him. Today my baby sister posted a short video of him on Facebook. Just seeing him and hearing his voice made it feel like day 1 all over again. I miss him so much. It is so surreal to have someone here one minute and gone forever the next. It is just not fair. He is the first person close to me I have lost. It has changed me forever. I will never be the same.

I started a new job on Monday. It is a good change. I liked my other job, the people too. It just didn't feel like the right place for me. This new job, new place feels right. I am thankful for that. Happy for that. It feels good to be happy about something. It feels like a fresh start after so much turmoil and that is so needed so much.

I placed this picture of my dad on my new desk. I get to look over and see his smiling face all day long. It makes me smile. It was taken in October at my house. My sister Rachel was in town from California and we were having an early Thanksgiving. It amazes me to this day how he could be going through what he was going through and able to have this genuine and wonderful smile on his face. I miss you daddy.