Goodbye Daddy  − 16 October, 1994

You know, when you're growing up, you just don't think about your own mortality. You also don't think of anyone else's. Growing up, I can only think of one person I knew who died (and sadly, she had a very violent death). My grandmother on my dad's side passed on in 1979, but I had only met her once when I was an infant (or maybe a little older). My maternal grandfather passed away in July 1991 and his death was a difficult one. My paternal grandfather's death followed a few months later, but again, I didn't really know him. So, up to this point, my only real experiences with death were my dog and my grandparents. You expect pets to die. As sad as it is to see grandparents go, it's kind of expected. You just can't prepare yourself for it being a parent.

On this day, my mom got a call from my uncle with the news my dad died. My parents had divorced when I was four and then remarried when I was seven. Shortly after that, my dad started a job that required him being overseas most of the year. I wasn't extremely close to my dad, but all the same, I loved him. In September 1989 he decided he wanted a divorce. After making the process financially hard on my mom, she relented and their divorce became final in April '90. Not long after, he married a woman two years my senior.

While my dad worked overseas, he would always write us all letters. Not even just letters he threw in one envelope...he would write one just for me, just for my mom, just for my sister...all mailed separately. The last letter I received from my dad was fall of 1990. We hadn't heard a thing from or about my dad until October 16th.

My mom got off the phone that day and I knew something was terribly wrong. Sometime before then my dad had been given the news he had lung cancer. He apparently had been undergoing radiation. The cancer seemed to be shrinking and it appeared he would be making a recovery. From what my uncle (and then later my dad's wife) said, my dad's experience was a wake-up call. He planned to get in touch with us and try to make amends. Unfortunately, that day never came. My dad was in the hospital and he had an embolism and died.

His death just never seemed real. Even his absence never seemed like it was permanent. Steve had just proposed to me the week before and even though my dad had made it very clear he wasn't going to be a part of my life, somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I somehow believed he'd be the one walking me down the aisle. Realistically, had he been alive and well, that wouldn't have been happened, but his death shattered that.

It took years to really have his death hit me. His absence made it easier to accept his death. We ended up moving to an area not far from where my dad was buried and going to his resting place was what it finally took to give me that closure. Oddly, not long after that, we moved to the same city (a city of only about 50,000 people) where my dad had owned a home and where he died.

Comments:

Oatesey (September 8, 2006. 11:16pm)

Wow! Heart wrenching. Thanks so much for sharing