Dad

Saturday June 9 2012 marked what would have been Mom and Dad's 74th anniversary.  Needless to say it was a really depressing day for me; I had honored the event in my heart for several ears because Dad was remarried.  And Dad was always alive.  This year, however, Dad joined Mom once again, and now I have neither of them.

Sunday June 10 2012 would have been Dad's 96th birthday.  I had decided that we would have another party this year because of Dad's failing health, and it would be a chance for all of us to get together again.  But with Dad's death this past Feb. 20, that dream died as well. 

I miss my dad.  I wasn't the best daughter, especially in the past few years.  I had issues, 2 big ones especially, that got in my way.  I did manage to deal with one of them last year, but the abandonment one is still here.  I couldn't tell Dad while he was alive, but I did tell him after he died.  If he is in Heaven and watching, he heard me.  If there is no afterlife, God forbid, well, then it doesn't matter, does it.

I know Gramma died never forgiving him, and I don't think Lyle and Marilyn will ever forgive him either.  I am in total agreement with them.  He left all of us behind to move south with his new wife so she could be closer to her grandchildren.  Had they moved halfway between Kokomo and New Albany, I could have grudginly accepted that.  But he moved 3 hours away.  I know Glory convinced him that we would visit him often if he moved away, but given the fact that I HATE riding, there was fat chance of that.  Dad knew this, but apparently forgot it.   But the pain of the abandonment was great.

Once he was south, Glory seemed to change.  I know she developed health issues and I am all too aware of how pain and frustration can weigh on you.  But Glory was bringing him down...  He was sitting home with her doing nothing for years before his health demanded it.  At least he did finally get out of the house some in those last years before they sold the house.  But once he was in the apartment, that changed too. 

Glory is not a bad woman.  She is quirky, more so since she is wheel chair bound.  Opinionated.  But then, who isn't nowadays?  She loved Dad very much, and I know she doesn't really want to live without him.  I believe that she was married to Dad longer than she was married to Vaughn's dad.  Don't know that for sure, but it was Dad she said she'd be with in death,  not Delbert.  Even so, she will be buried next to Delbert, her first husband. 

I miss you Dad.  I wasn't the daughter you wanted the last 20 years of your life.  I can't blame my feeling of abandonment on you; the feeling is mine.  You did what you felt was right for your wife, with what many of us perceive as not right for your own flesh and blood.  But it was your choice, and one I will never ever accept.  I may one day learn to forgive you for leaving us behind, but it will not be easy.  You will have to listen to many tirades against your decision in the process.  And I can not promise I will be able to forgive you.  But you are my father, and I do love you and I miss the presence that I knew was there even if so far away from me.  I know you accepted my emotional distance, perhaps too easily.  Which is probably my fault, too.

Father's Day 2012 is likewise the first without you.  It has not been as hard as difficult as was the anniversary and your birthday, but it has not been easy.  Two weekends in row which revolved around you - without you in this world. 

I know that you were ready to depart this life, that you knew you had lived past what you thought you should lived.  In spite of not being kept artifically alive, you were still kept alive by the hospitalizations and the nursing home  We all knew that your birthday celebration last year would be your last even though I didn't want to accept it.  I don't think that I was the only one, either.   We all know that you went outside last summer  (2011), hoping that you would not survive the heat, and that things went downhill from there when you were given CPR by your health aide at the apartment.  So in a way you did get your wish, albeit 7 months later.  And I didn't act like I should have.  I have not been the person I should have been for many, many years.  And so I live with the regrets that all this has caused.  Nonetheless, I do miss and love you Dad. Greatly.  I know that you know this, then as now.  I told you every time we talked.

Rest in peace Dad.  You taught us to be responsible and stand on our own two feet, and we learned that lesson.  I was always proud of you as the provider, as the man the community knew and respected.  You were there for me when I really needed it, and when some things that were Mom's that were supposed to be mine never came to me, I accepted it, but it did little to make me want to stay close.  You sold my mother's things one by one by one until none were left.  But I still loved you because you were my father.  Sometimes I didn't like you very much, but I always loved you.