Happy birthday dad!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 Permalink

It’s my dad’s birthday today. He would have been 73 years of age. But it’s now five months since he passed away, and I’m not yet sure how I am coping with his disappearance from my life.

My mother and I talk about it often. “How should we be feeling?” we wonder. I try not to think about it, or rather I try not to think about him being gone… as if he’s 300km away with mum in the house we grew up in. A luxury she doesn’t have. “Am I in denial?” I worry. “Is that normal?” I wonder, “Is that allowed?”

I can barely picture him without crying and wonder if and when that will change. Of course the ‘him’ at the end wasn’t the ‘him’ we need to remember. The him we need to remember faded away over the six weeks he spent in hospital… although perhaps he’d been fading away before that. Watching someone die over a period of a month was hard, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like when it happens more slowly. Sometimes when I close my eyes I see my father’s skeletal face and can still recall how his once-hidden cheekbones felt as I stroked his translucent thin skin.

I can’t bear to think of that last week, when he didn’t eat, drink or wake… wondering what he was conscious of as the morphine seeped slowly into his system. I try not to wonder if he knew that he was dying in his more lucid moments in the preceding weeks. They’re just things I still can’t think about. I prefer to think our bravado and feigned good spirits kept him unaware and buoyant, eager for the moment he’d be able to go back home with his beloved wife.

So, it’s easier to think that I’ll just see him again someday, rather than think of the ‘D’ word. And I don’t mean ‘dad’.

My mother’s trying to decide what to do with his ashes. The funeral home offered to hold onto them for up to a year. We have plenty of time, but are no closer to a decision. Both my brother and I have told my mother it’s her decision. He was our father, but he was her husband and the love of her life for 48 years. I’ve been honest with her though… I don’t think I’d go to a cemetery to visit him in a wall, or in a garden. I just prefer to visit him in my mind. Talk to him any time. Any place. I don’t need anywhere special to do that.

So, Happy Birthday dad, you know we’re thinking of you!

 

10 Comments
  • KCLAnderson (Karen)
    April 4, 2012

    Wow…so much I can relate to, except that my Dad died so very unexpectedly, and based on what you’ve written here, and what I know from others who’ve had to watch long, drawn-out declines, I am grateful that I didn’t have to see that. There’s a part of me that really did think my Dad would live forever. His 77th birthday was just a few days ago and I posted the last photo that he and I took together, it was about five months before he died. And I love it. I know what you mean about not being able to look at photos without crying. It does get easier, but then there are times when the grief comes out of no where. I’ll this quote with you, because it helps me:

    “Sorrow comes in great waves… but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see. … but it is only a darkness, it is not an end, or the end…” ~ Henry James, in a letter to Grace Norton

    • KCLAnderson (Karen)
      April 4, 2012

      Oh, and by the way, your Dad was SUPER handsome. So was mine 🙂

      And, you look like him 🙂

      • Debbish
        April 4, 2012

        Hee hee… thanks!

    • Debbish
      April 4, 2012

      Thanks Karen and that is a beautiful quote…

  • Juliana Dunne
    April 4, 2012

    Hi Debbie,
    I shed a tear or two upon reading this, feeling your pain and wonder. I have had these thoughts just about everyday since my dad had passed too, although under different conditions as to how am I suppose to be feeling.
    As with your father’s ashes it comes with another arrangement to help with the grieving of his passing, an important part to help let go. And that’s the part I found … hard to let go.
    Your beautiful family comes together as one Debbie, this binds the support needed to help this passage of saying good bye a little better. Feelings are never easy to compartmentalize, but necessary for those left behind to cope.
    All the best Debbie, only time will help heal this void . Thinking of you and your family. Xxxxx

    • Debbish
      April 4, 2012

      Thank you for your lovely kind words Juliana, AND your thoughts.

      Deb

  • loulou
    April 4, 2012

    Hello Deb

    I am thinking of you and your family with the wonderful memories of your dear father today. He certainly produced a lovely daughter.

    He is having cake and he is eating it too! He would want you to all rejoice on this day.

    warm hugs

    Loulou x

    • Debbish
      April 4, 2012

      Thanks Loulou, you are so kind. I can imagine him sitting at a dining table with his feet up eating cake and drinking tea. Wherever he is.

  • Mel
    April 4, 2012

    Your Dad was so handsome.

    I can only imagine how tough today was for you and your family. Im thinking of you and hope the good/fantastic/joyful/healthy memories linger louder in your mind as you remember him each day.

    xx

    • Debbish
      April 4, 2012

      Thanks Melly. You’re right… there are lots of good memories – definitely more good than bad. (I just wish he were still here; and him being gone isn’t very real… I still feel like I’ll get to see him sometime soon.)

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