Memories

In a few short days, the year of mourning for my Dad will be over.  So many memories and emotions are flooding back to me.  I recently found two of my brief journal entries during his last year of life, as I watched his physical decline.

A full year before he died on February 16, 2009 I wrote:  

Make it go away, this sense of torment and grief. I don't know where to put myself or what to do with it all. It is too huge.  I am raw.


Then on March 1, 2009 I wrote:  
First driving was taken away from him, now walking. How do we cope with these things?  The driving ban came after his heart surgery about 10 years before he died. The rehab center at the time gave us a pamphlet to read about seniors not driving, which was meant to metaphorically hold the family's collective hand through the process.  There is no one now, holding anyone's hand.  Harsh reality that my Dad will never walk again. 

Dad and me in Atlantic City, 1963

And now a year after Dad's death, a pretty profound thought has occurred to me and it has given me so much relief, and dare I say even joy?  I have come to realize that his death has given me something pretty amazing:   in my memories we can be any age I want us to be.  That is really cool! Not being in real time is one advantage of death, a small consolation....


So I am floating in and out of decades, months and minutes.  I'm a little girl in some, a teenager or grown woman in others.  Watching as my entire life with Dad floats in and out of sweet and tender memories ....  


I am blessed and grateful!  I learned that from you, Daddy.  Thank you.