Five years...

Five years seems like such a milestone, for some strange reason. Five long years without my Dad. Miss him, think of him all the time, wish he were with me but for an instant...just long enough to get a taste of what an amazing and beautiful little person his grandson is...
I know he is in my heart, with me all the time. I have so many wonderful memories of my parents and I as a child, so many wonderful memories of just me and Dad after the divorce, after we made things right between us. I am eternally thankful for such blessings. I'm thankful for the laughs we had over making those wedding CD favors, thankful for having him by my side to walk me down the aisle to Cary on our wedding day. Thankful to have shared so many conversations while he was in the hospital. And so thankful to have been right by his side until the end.
But being thankful doesn't take the pain, loss or grief away. It doesn't take away the fact that he will never be there to open presents with us on Christmas Day, or to sing Happy Birthday to McKinley...or to make that familiar morning call I received from him each birthday, my 21st was the funniest by far, yikes! I still get those great calls from Mom.

With that, I again express my thankfulness...I am thankful to have had such an amazing Dad, a wonderful, memorable childhood with both parents who loved me so much. It shaped who I am as a parent today.

Love you so much Dad...love you SO much.
Lynn

Four Years...

Today marks the four year anniversary of my Dad's passing. I'm feeling sad of course, but also reflective. I'm reflecting over many things...my childhood and funny moments with Dad, my adolescence and mending our relationship, my adulthood and how he enjoyed being with me and Cary, being with Dad as he died.
I'm also reflecting on how my life has changed in these four years since...how I rode that roller coaster of grief, and perhaps only now am I really seeing just how deep my hurt and anguish was. I'm still picking up pieces from things I broke...and learning. I'm so beyond thankful for what I still have - a beautiful family, extended and related by blood. I'm am wordless in my thankfulness for having McKinley, how he has blessed our lives and enriched it further than I could have imagined. Today I am thinking of what I have learned, how I've grown and how I've grown UP. I relish in the fact that I had 27 years with my Dad, yet I feel unbelievable pain in the fact that my son, nor my other children will ever have my Dad on Earth to share in something as simple as a dinner together, a high five, or birthday cake.
As I look back today on the last 365, where I was at the 3 year mark, I think I've come to understand and appreciate how different my big, yet-never-together-in-one-place family is and how we love one another. I also recognize that I've come to learn these things in the face of Dad's death. How he truly taught me that each day is precious, unpredictable and a gift from God...all taken away in a short time. This makes me savor each and every moment with McKinley - yes, even the two-year-old-tantrums...and thirty-one-year-old-tantrums as well. I also think this past year has made Cary and I into kids again, in an adult manner, if you will. We enjoy all the new things we are fortunate enough to introduce to McKinley, and we see them much in the same light.
And in this last year, as McKinley has grown by leaps and bounds I was forced to make a decision (something I desperately NOT good at) as to how to bring Dad to life...to McKinley's life. I don't even know what Dad wanted to be called as a Grandfather. It was something we rarely spoke of...he knew he wouldn't be here, and I did too, I think I just never wanted to face it. So as McKinley's speech developed like wildfire I knew I had to come up with something. He was used to seeing this man's face and perhaps used to me telling him that this was my Dad and his Grandfather...but who WAS he??? I did some research, not really finding a good fit for me...then one day, not very long ago, it came to me; we keep doing what we've been doing. THIS is what works for us: celebrate Dad's life on his special days, bring the pictures back (the pictures that were all too painful to see for so long), keep him as a permanent fixture in McKinley's life and he will come to understand the truth. I began calling him Grandpa Z. I don't know how Dad would feel about that. He LOVED being known as The Z Man, so I know I've got the Z part right. However, I called HIS Dad Grandpa Z and the two were absolutely nothing alike. I'm not fully committed to the name, maybe it's just a matter of McKinley finding his OWN fit, I'm not sure. For now, my Dad is loving referred to as "Grandpa Z in heaven" during our nightly prayer, lead solely by McKinley. I adore that.
So, on this evening, despite a few tears and lots of sadness we will celebrate my Dad and his life. Cary, my wonderful, thoughtful, kind husband suggested we go to Carosi's tonight...in memory of Dad. It was his very favorite place to eat, a place where we shared many meals together with family when I was a child, and with my Dad and my husband later in my life. It was perfect. Hopefully, a new tradition. Thank you, Cary, for suggesting something right up Dad's alley. You are a rock.
To my Dad, I miss you so very much. I miss you for McKinley too. I cannot believe I've made it four long years. Four long years ago this day was unfathomable.
I love you.
Lynn

A long list of memories

On Thursday I came head-on, face to face, mano a mano with a big dose of reality that I've avoided for 3 and a half years...selling my Dad's beloved truck. I had decided early in the summer that this would be one of my personal goals (like those mentioned in a post below about big decisions), but classically avoided it...until now.
There was this man who appeared on my back doorstep the week of McKinley's birthday party. He was hell bent on convincing me to sell Dad's truck rather than donate it as I had his convertible. I explained that the truck was packed full of memories and was perhaps too painful for me to see on the road. He pushed on, maybe someone could get some good use out of it...someone like him. He made me think (yikes!). So, I told him now was not the time and to give me a few weeks, I promised to consider it...that was all.
Thursday was the day that God sent this man again to my back door. I knew it was time and I instantly was teary-eyed. I felt more comfortable talking with this gentleman about Dad's truck than I had any other hoodlum who'd stopped and asked before - one who even cussed me out, no less. Thankfully, Cary was home on lunch so I wasn't totally alone with this landmark decision. He looked at the truck and made an offer. I cried...stupid, I know...but it's the reality of it. I went inside to think clearly - and cry some more, and came out with a strange determination. Okay, sold.
OMG.
I asked that he give me until 5pm so I could clean it out ... and wrap my head around the fact that this piece of metal would now leave my life forever. It had been in my life almost as long as my Dad.
The afternoon was tough, but not as tough as those final moments as the man pulled my Dad's truck - now his - out of our driveway and onto its new home. My heart broke a little more then...not from the loss of a material item, but it further confirmed that my Dad really is gone. I've lived with those simple words everyday since December 1, 2005 - Dad is gone - but it is no easier today than it was then. I miss him with all my heart, there isn't a day that goes by without the thought of a phone call or a funny life moment he would appreciate, a great photo I happen to shoot of McKinley...and McKinley himself, oh how he has missed out on having this man as his Grandpa.
As I cried, I very quickly settled this new fact of life in...the truck is gone, but those memories are always there! I know with as much certainty as I can muster that
#1 This was the right time for ME to let go
#2 That this was indeed the man who should have this classic truck
#3 That life would go on without that truck sitting unused in my driveway and it would be a better truck for having run as it was intended to.
I also know that God and my Dad had a hand in this. The man's name is Mike. He was even a little taken aback when he saw my Dad's floor mats - Tazmanian Devil with MIKE imprinted beneath. He'd had those for a long time and it was only fitting that our Mike (Dad) should pass on his funny little floor mats to the new Mike.
The new Mike promised, without my even asking, that he would take excellent care of this truck and that he would bring it by again when he had it fixed up and looking like a million bucks. That made me feel so good.
I never thought I could do this, I mean I know it's metal...but it personified my Dad. EVERYBODY knew Dad in his truck. He loved that thing and took excellent care of it from day one. I remember how he proudly informed me a few months before he died that he'd rolled a quarter of a million miles on that thing. They don't make 'em like that anymore.
Finally, the hardest part of watching the truck go - this long list of memories that has been constantly running through my mind;
The cold, wintry day that Dad fooled me into taking a drive (me driving at the age of about 12 - eager to jump behind the wheel as he always let me). He drove me to the coal mine near our home, shut down for the winter, pulled up this HUGE hill, parked and instructed me to get out, switch to 4WD and move us up the hill...in snow...old fashioned snow, lots of it! I think I peed my pants a little that day, but I never forgot laughing nervously as I tried so hard to do everything the way he'd taught me.
Then there's that time, after the divorce of my parents, that he spotted me cruising Wabash with my girlfriends. He pulled over, as did I and we chatted - which back then was about as much talking as we were 'allowed' to do because of his girlfriend. It was a fun opportunity to share my weekend events with Dad.
I remember driving to Southern Indiana to get tires for the truck with Mom and Dad. We stayed in a hotel that night and left the next day to get the tires, on our way home Mom and Dad surprised me with a special stop to pick up my beloved dog, Mac (weird to think we now have McKinley...another Mac!). I had no idea we were getting a dog and I was so excited!
I laugh out loud when I think of riding in the truck as a family...we would hit a bump and Mom would giggle and complain about the truck being so bouncy...it wasn't good on the boobs. She's going to kill me when she reads this.
That was the truck he took me to my Grandparents' house to see my Grandpa just after Dad had found my Grandmother - who had passed away in her sleep. That was a quiet drive.
We took that truck shooting together, we took that truck to dance class together, we took that truck sledding in Deming Park together. We loaded up gobs of wedding gifts in that truck together...me in a beautiful wedding gown, him looking dapper and so happy in a tuxedo.
Then, there was that time that we committed to repairing our injured relationship - post divorce, post girlfriend, post bitterness and anger...in that truck at L.S. Ayres on Christmas Eve, 1998. Thank God I have a picture of that day.
I miss my Dad so very badly, and I have hated having to do these things at such a relatively young age. But I am evermore thankful every day to have been given all of these beautiful memories, especially those in a red and white Chevy with a quarter of a million miles logged.
This truly is the end of an era.
Lynn