Tuesday, October 25, 2011

2 Quarters, 1 Dime , 1 Nickel and Change

2 Quarters, 1 Dime, 1 Nickel and Change

Today would have been my Daddy’s 65th birthday. It’s not easy to know how to grieve, how to celebrate.

I started dreading today at my Daughter’s birthday party earlier this month—he wasn’t there. The dread has built during the month. It is not that I have planned to close myself off today, lock myself away and sob. But I have been so unsure of what today would be like, for me, for Gretchen, and for my Mom. But the sadness did not take me over this morning. That’s not what this morning feels like; my feet did paused before they met the floor, but in my head I heard “just do your best.” That’s all that has to happen today. Just do my best.

There have been a lot of firsts in the past eight months, since his death. Ambush moments that were the 1st time something rolled around and he’s not here to share in it. But today is a first for him also. He’s not here for his own birthday. And let me tell you…He was a man that loved cake.

In my grief counseling group the counselor suggested that having plans for the day might ease your feelings of loss and turn them to feelings of remembrance. So today will be a remembrance of Daddy. We are going to do a balloon release with notes for him, eat at his favorite Mexican place and cake will be a must. But it all seems like so little. Seems like it should not be so simple it should be more, it seems like the whole world should know what it’s missing today—But he was never about show.

Daddy often—actually I would say always, equated your age with pocket change, speed limits for tag numbers. If there was a number he need to remember he would come up with some long drawn out word problem that only he only make heads or tails of. Social Security numbers, lotto picks, phone numbers and dates—all word problems. He would go to the lengthy association game in his head and pull up a date or something like turning a page in the Farmer’s almanac. He saw patterns in numbers and committed them to memory. At the beginning of school this year he would have LOVED that on the 2nd day of 2nd grade Gretchen received car rider number 222. He would have told her she got that number because she was so special.

I can’t come up with a word problem for today, 10-25-2011 the first time I can’t hug my Daddy on his birthday but I know he would be glad to be 2 quarters 1 dime and 1 nickel. Last year dealing with those four pennies was a tough year.

Like I said the dread has been building…but spending the entire day with my Daddy as the focus has not been bad, it has not been easy, but easy is not always the way when you have never been down a path before. So today I will celebrate a man I still don’t know how to live without. But he would say… “Just do your best. Nobody could ask more than that.” So today I will tie a note of love to a balloon and let it go. I will watch it drift away and it will leave my sight, but it will not be gone. Just beyond where my eyes can’t see and just too where my heart faithfully knows unseen things remain just out of sight.

Before his death I had the chance to tell me Daddy so much of what he meant to me. If you have a chance please take a read and get to know a man who today would have been:

2 quarters, 1 dime and 1 nickel.

More about my Daddy...So Many Reasons