And he died...

... 10 days later.  January 15, 2014.   He was 67 y.o.  Too young to die, in my opinion. 

My sisters and an uncle were there with him when he left us.  We did what we promised we'd do.  We did not let him suffer.  Thankfully Hospice helped us to keep our promise.  He was not afraid to die, but he was petrified that he'd lay there suffering, crapping himself, pissing the bed.  My dad lived his life by his terms and no one else's.  No one!  He even died on his terms.

And now, a month and a half later, I still can't believe that he's gone.  I have forgotten several times.  My grandson who's 4 y.o was here and said some really funny stuff that I wanted to share with my dad.  That was the first time I forgot that he had died. 

It sounds so weird.  How do you forget something like that?  But I honestly did.  Cooper said something hilarious about Dad's old cowdog, Babe.  I had that instant thought, "Oh Dear Me!  I've got to call Dad and tell him what this kid just said.  He'll crack up laughing!"  Then about a nanosecond later, I remembered that I can't call my dad...ever again.  And that about broke me.

I don't know how you get over grief.  Maybe you never do.  The waves that come crashing in on me aren't quite so frequent, but when they do arrive, they are no less crippling.  I'm just now beginning to be able to look at his photos without bawling.  Just barely.  I expect that I will miss him for the rest of my life.  

My granddaughter was with me yesterday.  She saw a photo of Dad and said, "Are you sad Grammy that Great Papa Cowboy died?"  I told her that I was sad, that I missed him very very much.  She placed her little hand on my shoulder and said, "Don't be sad, Grammy.  Now he lives in the stars with Jesus."  She wanted to go outside last night to look at the stars and say goodnight to Great Papa Cowboy. 

I love that child.  I'm thinking Dad would love her sweet and simple explanation.   He loved to look at the stars.  I think I may take up stargazing myself.

I called him Daddy

I don't remember ever calling him "Daddy".  Maybe I did when I was a toddler, but he's always been Dad or Pops.  I was so surprised when it came out of my mouth yesterday.  After I pushed aside the grief and the intense heartache, I was surprsed at the depth of my love for him and that I called him Daddy.  At my age...it just came out.  Amid the tears and the anguish I feel, I just wrapped my arms around him and said, "Oh Daddy..."

Sometimes the grief of what we're all going thru is so heavy I can't breath.  Sometimes it hits me that he's dying and I literally am lost in midstep....or I get hit with it at the most bizarre moments.  In the grocery store, pumping gas, sitting at a red light...When it comes, it comes on hard and it's like a physical punch or full body slam.  It takes my breath away and I'm crippled with the grief.   Then there are the moments when I'm cold and almost clinical with it all. I can talk about it with a precision that's surgical.  I'm sure people who hear me then must think I'm the coldest, most uncaring perosn on the planet.  How can you talk about your father's terminal illness with such lack of emotion.  But...it's because I'm empty of emotion, having exhausted it all at the last sneak attack of grief.  That stealthy moment where I barely got to my car from the grocery aisle so I could allow the meltdown to come on in relative privacy. 

As I was helping him walk across the parking lot yesterday, I was struck with how frail he is.  How utterly wasted his body has become.  Where is my strong and tough father?  Who is this little, gaunt, bent over sweatpants wearing old man?  My father would NEVER be seen in public wearing sweatpants!  This is the man who my whole life wore Wranglers, Stetons and the best cowboy boots money could buy!  Who is this little old man, shuffling in his slippers beside me?  I have to hold his arm because he's so unsteady on his feet.

He tells me that he's about done.  He doesn't know how much longer he can go on like this. The pain is getting worse.  He has to take more and more pain medicine to stay on top of it.  He chokes up when he's telling me.  We stop in mid-parking lot, and he looks me in the eye.  Tears are dripping from his rheumy eyes, his chin is quivering.  "I'm scared of suffering, Sis.  I don't want to suffer."   I lost my strength and resolve right then.  I broke down crying so hard and threw my arms around this bony, skeletal old man and said, "Oh Daddy..."   He hugged me as hard as his thin frame would allow him and we both just bawled and bawled in broad daylight, in the middle of a public parking lot, for the whole world to see.  Just an old Daddy and his grown little girl, mourning for what we are about to lose.