Random thoughts......

This is and has been a bumpy several weeks for us. I normally decorate for holidays 30 days before hand. I decorate big time, and I figure if I am gonna have to put that much work into something I want to enjoy it, on the other hand, the day after the holiday I am quite done with cleaning and gardening around the decorations and am happy to put them away. This year I just didn't seem to be able to find the time to put the Halloween decorations up. When we finally got around to putting up the decorations it hit my why I had been too 'busy' to put them up. Last year we did not take the Halloween decorations down until after Thanksgiving. On November 1st last year, first thing in the morning as I was getting kids off to school, and getting ready to take Halloween stuff down, and put fall stuff up, we got the news that my hubby's mom had passed during the night. Probably a massive heart attack they thought. It was weird, she hardly ever wore her teeth, and never to bed, but that night she did. Kinda like she knew she was going to meet her beloved after all this time they had been apart. She had million things wrong with her, and was taking just as many pills daily, and had Ahlzheimers, and knew it, and would cry when she would realize it. Her husband died when my hubby, now 45, was just 6 years old, she mourned his death just as intensely during her last days of life as she did the day he died. She went home to her husband. No more pain or sadness. She was finally free.

We just start to recover the best you can after this, my hubby had also just 2 weeks prior had to attend the funeral of a long time friend, we were getting ready for a final- aint- ever- gonna- have- another- one- for- the- rest- of- my- life- garage sale. I did not go to bed until 4:30 am, we were going to set up the garage sale first thing and then take down the outside decorations in between moments of chaos during the garage sale. About 6:00 am the phone rings, it is my sister, in tears, she had just hung up the phone from my mom......my dad woke her up making a strange noise.......he was trying to silence his scream...he was holding his chest. My mom thought it was a heart attack. I strained to hear the words, I hardly could hear though, someone was crying, and then I realized it was me. For months I had been telling my hubby that my dad was going to die, and soon. His light was fading. I can not see everybody's light.......and yes this is the point where some of you will decide I am a nut, oh well......so anyway some people have a light I can see, an aura of sorts. But I can't see it with my eyes, hard to explain. I kept telling my hubby, for months that my dad's light was fading and that we were not going to have him much longer, but I thought we would have him longer that what we did. My sister and I got to the hospital, my mom a mess, I think deep down in place where she did not have to acknowledge it, she knew my dad was dying, she seemed to already to be mourning. They had to intubate my dad, and sedate him, he was not getting enough oxygen to his brain. His ears were purple, his neck was swollen, he kept trying to tell us something. I knew it was time to say goodbye. They did a ct scan, he had a Triple A, an aneurysm of the aorta, only his was not the balloon kind, it was the tearing kind. It was one of the worst they had ever seen....it, the aorta, tore from the base of his heart down into each of this thighs. Every time his heart beat blood was lost from the circulatory system, every time his heart beat he was floating closer to death. The surgeon came in to explain the procedure, a formality really, just to say they did everything they could, even though he would not say it. As soon as they began he bled out. My daddy was gone. I wanted to run through the halls of the hospital screaming bloody murder, I wanted to hit walls, kick doors, break glass and smack the crap out of this group of sisters who were sharing a quiet room with us, who were praising God up one side and down the other because their daddy had survived something he should not have. MY daddy was gone and that just wasn't suppose to happen to us damn it! I began to bargain with God that I would do anything just give him back to us. Looking out of the windows, trying to maintain my composure for mom's sake, why is everyone out there beyond the windows and the walls of this smelly, cold, sterile bad place still living their lives. Why hasn't anyone stopped for crying out loud...... MY DADDY JUST DIED!!!! He was only 59. His honery mother lived in a teeny house smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day, with no ventilation, so she was also breathing in second hand smoke, always pissed at the world about something, and she lived 20 years longer. Why did he have to go? Why now? We were just talking about Thanksgiving. I have never felt so small, so helpless, and have never felt a pain that was so deep, so bad that it cut through the very core of my body and right through my soul. Every person I had lost up to this point was old old, I knew in my heart they were home, and in a much better place, they were at peace, I was at peace with their death. As I was standing in front of the casket that held the empty shell of a body that my daddy's soul once occupied I find myself questioning my beliefs, my faith in the 'system' I guess. Is there really a Heaven, is there a soul, does it really go on........will I see him again when my time is up. I am trying to prepare myself for all of the small talk the evening has in store, all the kind words, the relatives you only see at weddings and funerals, only this time it is me on the other side, how do you do this 'job', I don't want to, and if anyone says 'he looks good' I'm gonna scream, because he looks dead not good! He looks like an abandoned vehicle on the side of the road, the driver long gone. My dad was always a very superstitious person, he would literally drive a million miles out of his way if a black cat crossed his path, my dad died on the 13th of November. The 13th was a bad number for the superstitious. It was also 2 days before my oldest son's birthday, the child who is totally freaked out about death, funerals. Is he going to think about this for the rest of his life? I did not get to spend his birthday with him, I was talking the formalities of the customs we have when it comes to recognizing a death with my mom, sister, and a funeral director, not celebrating life with my son and the rest of our family.

The next day, my hubby's uncle passed away.

So, we could not even find half of the Halloween decorations from last year, but that is ok, we weren't really in the mood to see them, not this year, maybe next year if we find them.

Today I found myself wondering what my dad was thinking about a year ago today, what he did after work. What he dreamt about. What would he have done differently if he knew. It seems as though he has been gone so long that it is almost like I dreamed his existance, was he ever really here? Why can't I feel him? I miss his big squishy hugs, the way he smelled, the way after we said 'I love you, good bye' he would quietly one more time say 'love you'. When he held your hand he would always sneak in a sqeeze or two, just to remind you he loved ya. He was not all sugar and spice, but there were reasons for that, and as long as you understood why, then you could not help but love him.