I don't think I've ever really chronicled that day in print before. Parts of it are burned into my memory and I'll never forget them. Parts are gone like a mist - I can almost see them, but then they disappear.
His death wasn't a surprise - he had been struggling with various forms of cancer for years. I remember that last summer - he was at the house in a hospital bed in our living room. We had a parade of nurses in our house and my mom was exhausted. Nobody told me how bad it was. In the late-summer, my nephew Nicholas was born. My sister, her husband and new baby moved into our home for a few weeks so daddy could spend time with him. I should have guessed then.
I started 7th grade in the fall at a new school anxious to see a friend that had moved away a few years before. For the first time in months, someone asked me over for a sleepover after the Junior High Football game on Friday nigh (Sept. 3rd). He insisted that I go - I'd been in the house too much he said.
So I went and got into a terrible fight that night with the friend I was so excited to see. It seems she wasn't so glad to see me. The next morning - from the sleepover, I called to apologize. The mom of the girl I was with came to me and said that she was taking me to the hospital - my dad had been brought in. I still didn't get it. I knew it was bad, but had no idea.
Somehow, I got upstairs, but I don't know how. All I remember is seeing all of these family members around. His mom, my momo just looked at me and said "He's dad cha." My oldest brother hurried over to get me and I think I asked if it was true. He just walked me to the hospital room where my mother stood silently. He was there - but he was gone. I remember seeing him, but that's not the memory that usually shows up when I picture him.
I remember being in a courtyard at the hospital with my mom and brother-in-law. She was clutching him and screaming - I could hear the echoes of the building. To this day, I can still hear it.
I remember riding in a car, watching the city fly by as we headed home. I remember thinking that nothing would ever be the same.
There were people in and out for days. We had a big memorial service. My mother cried a lot. My grandmother scolded me for watching TV and my sister fussed back at her reminding her I was still a child.
Then it was all over. People left, I had to go back to school and with that he was gone. Not from my memory, but from my life.
A nurse told us that she had prayed with him before he died to ask Jesus into his heart. I didn't quite get it at the time because my dad was always a religious man. I get it now - she told him the Truth and now he is in heaven and I will get to see him again.
I have so many questions for him. Did he know it was the end? Is that why he sent me away that night? Is he proud of me? My logical mind says yes, but I've made so many mistakes in my life. Has he been watching over me and now my children? What was it like for him when he finally heard the gospel and believed? What was he scared of? How could he have been so positive about a special needs child when at the time, it was looked at as a horrible thing? What were his passions? What was his childhood like? On and on it goes. I want to know the mundane and the important.
I still have dreams about him - that it's all been a big mistake and that he just shows up one day back into our lives. He left me at such a tough age to be a kid. I don't feel like I really knew him (I was the last of 4). But I loved him and thought he was the most powerful man in the world. I was just old enough not to understand that he was human, capable of mistakes and regrets.
I can't wait to talk to him again now that I am grown with children of my own. I can't wait to tell him all about them. How brilliant Abbey is, how much Harry looks like him, how funny Anna Kate is. I can't wait to introduce him to my husband - a man I know he would approve of. I really can't wait to see he and my mom together again. In a place without the worries of the world and the harsh words that can be spoken here. Most of all, I can't wait to be with both of them in peace and love for eternity.
