What Time Does and Doesn't Do.

It has always seemed so odd to me that people say things like "time heals all wounds." or "give it a year." I get that people truly believe that's helpful, but it's a little crass. I mean, why would you trivialize someone's grief by putting a time limit on it? What about a year is the magic number? I don't get it. I get the good intentions, just not the silly sayings. It's almost like being a foreigner in a new country and hearing slang terms or common phrases and thinking, "What does that even mean?"

I've been finding myself in these gripping moments where the earth seems to stop. For me at least. Everything around me keeps going, and moving. And I just sit still, clutched in sorrow. And it happens so abruptly.

For instance, the other day I was listening to some Pandora playlist and the song "A Thousand Years" came on. Now to the other people sitting close by it might have just been a song from that shitty Twilight movie. But for me that song is too much when I'm not ready for it, and soothes my soul when I need it.  That was the song I danced to with my Father for probably the first time, and most crushingly, the last. My sister had given me the chance at her wedding to dance with my Father since I didn't get to dance with him at mine.
When that song came on at work it paralyzed me. This hole in my heart opened up and consumed me. Swallowed me whole. It took over and made me realize I would never see my Father again. Obviously, I know he's gone. But there are moments where the reality of it almost becomes tangible. Where the pain seems so intense, and so concentrated, that it doesn't even seem like anything this of this world.

When I feel like that it makes me envision my heart as a puzzle. There are all these stunning pieces. All these beautiful memories. So many pieces that fit together to make me who I am. But one is missing. And it's my Dad. Sure there are pieces that are all my memories with him. And the pieces that are filled with my love and respect for him. But the one that's missing is the one that made him here. The one with his body that I could hug. The one with his laugh. His smile. His voice. And where that piece went, is just black. It's a void. And that's what swallows me up when it hits me that he's gone. That one void expands and consumes everything else.

That's why I won't understand why time will fix things. Because my heart, with it's missing piece will never be whole. It will always have a void. Time isn't going to take the shape of my Father and fill that in. Nothing will. That piece is irreplaceable. So no, a year will not (and most certainly did not) make things better. Time will not make things better. I will always have those moments where that void takes over, because I will never get to hug my Dad again. I will never say something that makes him laugh to the point of tears. I will never hear him call me curly again. I will not get to make any more memories with him. I have to hold on to the one's I have. So, fuck time. Because time is what's keeping me from seeing him again.

THE talk

Last night I had THE talk with my 3 year old. No, not THAT talk. That would be ridiculous. I'm saying we had THE talk. The one I knew would come one day. I guess I figured it would take a while for Dexter to figure out. I thought he would be more worried about cars, and transformers and Paw Patrol than putting together what the absence in his life meant.

So, I put Dex to bed. Laid him down and tried to give him a kiss good night. He told me he didn't want kisses from me, just from Daddy.  I handed him the picture I framed of him and my Dad kissing right before Dad passed away.

He kisses that picture almost every night (which is why there are dried white toothpaste spots all over it) I told him, "Tutu man would like some kisses. He really misses you." Dexter still wouldn't pass out any kisses to anyone but Daddy. So, I kissed the picture and said, "Good night, Dad. I love you." And then Dexter started crying. At first I just blew it off as him being too tired, and the fact that he doesn't think that his Tutu man could also be my Dad. He can't be both!

Dexter started to argue with me through tears and tell me that wasn't my Dad. It was HIS Tutu man! Something about his tears and the way his face looked told me it wasn't just the misunderstanding of how my Dad could be two things at once. It wasn't just Dexter being possessive over his Tutu man. There was something else troubling his tender heart. I dismissed it, gave him kisses and left the room knowing he would fall asleep within minutes from being so tired.

But then I heard it. It was unmistakable. He wasn't just tired. He was hurting. I went into his room and told him what I thought would make him feel better, "Dexter, this is your Tutu man. ok, he's all yours." But it didn't help. His eyes were still full of sorrow and he said to me, "No, that's not my Tutu man anymore." I asked him why and told him once more that it was, and then  came THE talk.

"No, it's not my Tutu man anymore! *sobs* he's dead."

I say it was a talk but that was really all that was said. It wasn't a conversation, it was just that one phrase. And I wish I could say that when he said that I picked him up and held him in my arms until he stopped crying, and told him that his Tutu man watches over him every day and smiles whenever he sees Dexter. But I didn't. My heart was too broken.

I laid there (I had told Dex earlier that I would lay in his room with him until he calmed down) and sobbed. I cried a little for myself because I missed my Dad so terribly but my heart hurt the most for my son. My little 3 year old that had figured out that he kissed a picture every night because his grandfather wouldn't ever be there to give him kisses in person. I cried because he was so broken by it. I cried because my son, at 3, had been effected by such an ugly thing as death. I cried because it was so damn bittersweet.

As a mother who has lost a parent, I always pray to God that Dexter will remember my Dad. I always try to talk about him to Dexter and show him pictures so he doesn't forget who he is. And in that moment it made me so happy to know that Dexter still remembered my Dad, but it hurt to know that his love was still so strong that his little heart was torn apart at the realization that his hero was gone.

I should have been a better mother and I should have talked to him more, but I didn't. I just cried with a broken heart for myself and for my son. I'm sure it will come up again sometime, and I just pray that next time I have the strength to explain things and use it as a positive time to talk about what a wonderful man my Dad was.

Hard Lessons

There is this moment that we see so eloquently portrayed on TV and in movies. It's a scene where a person is on their death bed and they pull their loved in close, and tell them that they love them, and how proud of them that they are. And it's beautiful. It's one last moment together. A moment that that person clings on to forever. Whenever they miss their loved one they think of that moment. And I'm sure it happens in real life. I'm positive it does. But in my own personal story, it went nothing like that.

After days of my Dad being in a medically induced coma as he laid in his ICU bed, he started to come around. He moved his fingers, opened his eyes. He even began to talk to us. There were previously a few days that I wasn't sure if I would ever get to hear his voice again. But we did, it wasn't the same voice we were used to, it was small and broken. Feeble, and barely comprehendible. It did get better as the days went on.

One morning I showed up to the hospital in Little Rock and someone came down to tell me that my Dad wanted to speak with me and not to bring Dexter up to the room yet. I had this feeling like I was in trouble. Like I had had all those years when life wasn't going so well and I would get a text or a voice mail from my Mom saying to call her back I always knew I was in trouble. This time I had my life together. I quit all the partying. I had a family. I didn't know what was making me feel so nervous. I knew that Dad probably wanted a moment together to tell me something before he died. That in itself was worrisome enough, but there was shame attached to the sorrow of hearing what he had to say to me before he was gone.

As I got to the room the atmosphere was heavy. My Dad called me over to his side and told me something that only a Father could say to a child. My Father, my hero, made a decision to speak to each one of us kids and to tell us something he wanted to make sure we knew before he died.
He said things to me that stung. They made me angry and full of terrible pride. Made me resentful towards people. They made me cry myself to sleep on so many occasions. And they make me cry now. But, they made me a better person.

He told me that I needed to watch what I say to people. And how I talk to them, because nobody liked me.

I hear those raspy words in my ear a lot. "Nobody likes you..."
And I know that he didn't mean it in a literal sense, but he was letting me know that my disposition towards other people was ugly, and people didn't really care to be around me because of it. I had become such an ugly person on the inside. Judgmental. Mouthy. Negative. I knew what he was talking about. I knew that it was true. Me, the person with the positive vibes tattoo was one of the most toxically negative people he knew.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about it. It hurts to know that I was so putrid that he chose to say those words to me instead of the words we often think we'll hear in a moment like that. He did tell me that he loved me. He told me over and over again, but I already knew that. What I was unaware of was who I had become, and that my ugliness was evident to so many people.

It took me a long time to swallow my pride and use his words to inspire me. I knew I had become someone I didn't like but I didn't think that I deserved to lose what should have been such a special moment and get slammed instead. It still hurts, a lot. But I have finally gotten to the point where when I start to gossip a voice pops up in my head and says, "is this what your Dad would want to hear?' At first my pride pushed that away and I continued gossiping and belittling other people. But then I knew I had to change. I had to make myself change.

I still make mistakes and I still find my self saying things that my Dad might not be too thrilled about. But I'm a work in progress. I try my hardest every day to be positive and uplifting, or sometimes, to just keep my mouth shut.

As hard as it is to think about that day and how hard it was to hear that, I just try to think of the day when I see him in Heaven and he hugs me and tells me the strong voice that I remember,
"I saw the things that you've done since I left. And I am so proud of you."