One Step at a Time

My parents have always wanted me to write. My mom has had grand dreams of me writing children's books and becoming a famous author, then buying her a new house with all of my new found wealth. I've finally decided to listen to her. Of course, this isn't a children's book called Way to Go, Bucko! (her chosen title for my venture in writing), but I suppose it's a start.

I'm getting off to a poor start here. I've deviated from the original subject, which is that picture above. That would be a picture of me and my dad. I kind of like him, can you tell? To this day, my chin still rested on top of his head. The easiest way to sneak in a hug was when he was sitting down watching TV. I'd come up behind him, wrap my arms around his neck and rest my chin on the top of his head. It was an easy way for me to remind him how important he was to me. In all my 27 years, no one has ever looked out for me the way my daddy has. No one has every put me first the way my daddy has. And no one will ever, ever take his place.

On October 31, he collapsed in his office around 4 pm. At 6:02 pm on November 1, he was declared dead. And now, here I am, trying to deal with the aftermath of losing my daddy, my best friend, my biggest supporter, my rudder, if you will.  He was the first person I would go to for advice and he would always offer up his honest opinion. It wasn't always what I wanted to hear, but it was what had to be said. He'd never try to make my decisions for me when I asked for help, he'd just try to steer me in the direction he felt was right. I didn't always take that direction well and that never tended to work out well. He'd be disappointed, but he would still be there, supporting me and helping me through it.

Of course, he also had a habit of making up answers when he didn't know the real one, and he would give you his nonsense answer with a completely straight face and sincere tone. I still had trouble telling the difference between the nonsense and the real answers sometimes.

I find myself now full of questions and there's no one there to feed me nonsense answers. I'm confronting the biggest test of my life, and there's no one there telling me that if I can't do this alone, they will be there to make sure I get through it. They will make sure I succeed. There is no possible way to effectively describe how all encompassing that pain is. It's so overwhelming and overpowering that I have yet to let myself face it fully. I don't think I can. I will get a taste of it from time to time in random moments of panic but I haven't fully addressed it yet. How do you address something you know nothing about when the central piece of your guidance system isn't there? Not that he would be much help with this. He lived 62 years and never lost anyone close to him. His dog was the biggest loss he ever had to face. For someone who was so happy and so humorous, I find that to be such a blessing. He never had to navigate these waters.

One of the random thoughts that crossed my mind after this was that he followed his dog. It's like those stories of people losing their loved one and then dying shortly after. It struck me as funny at the time. It probably makes no sense now. Maxwell died back in April, and he was so utterly and completely my dad's dog. I'm glad that Maxwell went first. He wouldn't have been able to survive losing dad. To be honest, I never thought I would be able to, either. Yet here I am. I'm surviving. I may be at a point where I consider just being upright and breathing easily a victory, but I am surviving.

I've been sort of talking through my grieving via Facebook, and really, no one cares on Facebook. It's not the place to vent and mourn. It isn't very satisfying, either. But writing is so much easier than speaking. I'm not good at articulating what I need or want to say. My brain works so much faster than my tongue and whatever I try to say usually ends up a jumbled mess. So I decided to turn here. This may be a much more successful venture for me. This way, no one has to read it unless they want to and I can still vent everything I feel I need to say. That's a big problem for me. If I don't say what I need to say, I get frustrated and I can feel it bottling up. This may get very frank as a result of that. I'm not going to hold back. I am hoping that maybe, just maybe, a daily note here will help me be able to better understand what exactly it is I am trying to navigate through. We'll have to see how this goes.