Will we still be having the same conversation 5-20 years from now? Will we still be ever so curious…. wondering how life without dad is a reality? Will it ever feel real? Or will it all set in with time?
I’ve been living and moving through life for the past few days…. missing dad but pursuing what’s in front of me and thinking about it as little as possible….. but then I was smacked in the face with reality on the way to a concert last night.
All it took was my 15 year old cousin to post a status about how much he misses my dad and thought about him throughout his first day as a high school freshman….. and honestly seeing the words he wrote made me crumble a little on the inside.
Collin and dad had this weird love/hate relationship where they picked on each other constantly…. I mean it was brutal at times… And as he grew up, their relationship became a friendship…. and dad said on multiple occasions he would do anything for my three cousins… anything. He loved them that much.
And I didn’t really see it coming…. how heartbroken Collin would be with the loss of my dad. Honestly, I feel like he was more crushed than I was. At the viewing he burst into tears, showing how great his heart and compassion really are… and at the funeral he cried the whole time.
I hate that he’s so upset over the situation… so crushed and missing my dad so very much.
It’s strange how these raw moments come to life. You think you’re fine and then a Facebook status reminds you that you’re not…. that it’s real… that dad is gone.
My sister and I talked about it all last night…. She was reliving moments and so was I…. and it’s just hard to realize that he’s gone. We both agreed that death is so strange. That it’s still baffles both of us how the breathe is so necessary for our life here on earth to be a reality….
I think standing in the hospital room when he passed will always be in our memories… or at least mine. I wasn’t prepared for it at all. I wasn’t thinking that I would watch my dad die in my mom’s arms. I wasn’t really thinking at all….
We also talked about how crazy it is to think he lived with it for 5-10 years…. I mean, 10 years ago I was 15…. 15 and going into my sophomore year of high school…. 15 with a permit…. 15 and we still lived on Yarbrough…. and I still had braces…. so many things have happened in 10 years. I didn’t have confidence 10 years ago. I hadn’t lost 100 pounds or studied Hebrew, Greek and the Bible… I hadn’t graduated high school or spent time at BPCC… Christ for the Nations wasn’t a reality yet and neither was BAMA….
So many things have happened in life in 10 years… so many….. and in 5 years…. well, 5 years ago I was preparing to move to Dallas to go to Christ for the Nations…. BAMA wasn’t even on my radar. I thought I wanted a life in ministry….
And now… here I am. Here I am 5-10 years later in Los Angeles, CA…. and I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m living I suppose…..
But all of those years…. all of those years dad was living with cancer…. his body was at war on the inside trying to preserve years…. life. And in the end he died prematurely. So would it have been better for him to have known?
I mean, the man was building houses… walking on framing and roofs… he was snow skiing…. he was investing his time and money into our happiness… he was living like he was dying and he didn’t even know it.
In a way…. in a way that’s pretty impressive, but it still sucks…. and I do want him back so much…. but I can’t have that.
I had another dream last night that he came back to life…. it’s the second one I’ve had… and I don’t know why I keep having these dreams…. but in this one he had been dead for a few days and then right before the funeral he came back to life. The entire dream was freaky in so many ways…. like out of a horror movie…. without the blood and creepy music or course…
I don’t know what to do with these dreams though. I must really want my dad back though…. on some kind of subconscious level. But I guess that’s impossible….. I mean I did watch his breathe leave his body…. meaning he’s gone forever.
So…. where do I go from here? What do I do with all of this? And how do I figure out why I keep having these dreams? I guess I’ll figure it out…. and until then, move forward and watch it get better with time.
I told my mom what God told me about blooming. She, who is always wiser than me, said, “Amanda, I know you’re excited, but remember this is going to be a PROCESS. Just like all of the growth you’ve experienced, blooming will take time. A bud doesn’t open overnight. It takes time to expand as it reveals the colorful world inside.”
