Today is the first anniversary of my dad’s death. A year ago today he ended his battle with brain cancer.  Four years.  They gave him 6 months to a year after the first surgery (if he lived through the surgery).  They said those months would not be quality time. That he’d never read, write, communicate effectively again.  That he might be blind.  He proved them all wrong.  My Dad is a fighter.  He lived a good life.  He was a good person.  He worked hard and played harder.  He loved God. I’ve had emotional moments today- but I’m mostly remembering the good things.  I don’t know that I always miss him as much as I should since I did so much mourning before he even died.  Mourning when parts of him or his personality slipped away.  I feel like we lost him little by little over four years and on March 16th 2006 all we lost was what was remaining of his physical body.  But even that wasn’t who my Dad was.  I missed him terribly on the day of Ashley’s baptism- which was last weekend.  I’ve not posted pictures yet because it seems weird to have such a monumental event and him not be there.  He’s been present at every other such event in my life- to not have him attend the baptism of my daughter was really difficult for me.

I was at the church bookstore buying Ashley some scriptures as a gift and while I was waiting for her name to be imprinted on the front I picked up a book that contained a bunch of thoughts or stories. I thumbed through it and one caught my eye. It was about a man’s father who had cancer or some other terminal illness.  He talked about how ill his father was and how much pain he was in- but how when he asked his dad how he was doing he’d respond, ‘I’m just happy to be here.’  I can’t think of how many times I heard my dad say that over the last 4 years of his life.  The further into the four years it got the more emotional he’d get when he said it.  He was truely just happy to be with us.  We were happy to have him. But when it was time for him to go we were happy to see him out of pain and able to move on.

I feel like this last year has gone so quickly.  I can’t believe that it’s been a year since he died.  But at the same time I feel like we’ve lived a lifetime without him.  Like my sister Katie said, I feel like the only way my children will know him is by our talking about him and telling stories about him.  I feel like that is a huge responsibility.  I find little moments here and there and point things out that he used to say or do.  I think of him every time I see his huge  bass recorder sitting on my shelf or his rocking chair at my mom’s house.  It’s hard to think that I’ll never see him sitting in that chair holding one of my babies and playing them a lullaby.  It’s hard to consider having a baby that he’ll never hold.

I remember leaving the church after the funeral to get into cars and drive to the cemetary and looking around and seeing cars driving by and thinking that life wasn’t stopping. My dad had died and people were still driving down the street.  People were still going to work and going to the store and living their lives.  I just wanted to scream and tell everyone to stop for just a minute. Just give me a minute to collect my thoughts and emotions and just stop.  But nothing has stopped.  Life goes on.  I just can’t believe that it’s going on without him.

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