It's been 5 months since my last post. It's probably been equally as long since my last workout. I've been so busy with a toddler, 4 college classes, balancing home life and school work, and trying to keep my life in order. To top it off, I've been thinking a lot about my Pop lately and how hard things have been since his passing.
My thoughts go along the same lines most days -- how much I miss him, how I wish he hadn't had to suffer, why him, etc. I have thought a lot though about things I would've done differently in his last couple of days. My biggest regret is that the last two days of his life, I didn't get to see him. I know I should let go of that. I was there a lot. But I wasn't there the day he died. The day he died, I told my mom I just wanted "one normal day". I went to visit her. We had lunch and we went to Target. I bought my father a frame for a picture someone had sketched for him. I was driving home and when I got to Frederick, I debated whether to go to his house or just go straight home. I decided to go straight home and told myself I would just "see him tomorrow". His tomorrow never came. I somehow can't seem to let go of the fact that I wasn't there.
I also think about the last Wednesday we spent together. When I was younger, Pop would always pick me up and take me out to dinner on Wednesday nights, a tradition we still carried on much of my teenage and early adult years. That Wednesday was different though. I was there to watch over him and help him out. He didn't need a lot of help that day. His mind was lost in his music. He slept most of the day with his headphones on, occasionally waking up to watch a few minutes of TV or to have a brief conversation with me. I had planned on talking to him, telling him all the things I wanted to make sure he knew before he died, but I didn't. For whatever reason I decided not to, and now there are so many things I wish I had said and didn't have the strength to. I wanted to tell him that in spite of the brave face I put on, that in spite of telling him that I would be OK when his time came, that in spite of the fact that I had a background in psychology and knew what I would experience in a time of grief (it's in all the textbooks, don't ya know?), I was scared. I was terrified of what life would be like, and is like, without him. I wish I had told him how much I appreciated him having tried everything imaginable to overcome his cancer, whether it was for himself or because he was afraid of what would happen to those he would leave behind.
I have a friend who recently lost her step-father. He was closer to her than her own father, or "sperm donor" as she called him. She texted me late one night a few nights ago and asked me when it would stop hurting, when the tears would stop. I had to sit and think about it for a minute because I honestly don't know. My tears have never stopped, they've just become less frequent. The pain has never stopped, but at some point I did begin to numb to it. I didn't know how to explain to her that she would reach a point where it doesn't hurt for a little while, but then you find a picture or hear a song or see something the person would've appreciated and you lose it.
It's been over 2 1/2 years since Pop died. I still can't bring myself to delete his name out of my phone. I've been through 3 since he died and they keep transferring my directory. My BlackBerry crashed at one point and I lost all of my contacts. I was sad his name was gone, but felt like in some small way, I was aided in moving along. Then I bought a new phone and somehow they were able to recover all of my old contacts from my BlackBerry, including the ones I had lost when it crashed, and transferred them to my new phone. Now I'm back at square one. Sometimes for just a split second I feel like the worst child in the world because I can't remember the last time I spoke to him -- then I remember that I can't speak to him anymore. Sometimes I see something he would've thought was hilarious or remarkable and for a split second I try to figure out where my phone is so I can call him. I have dreams about him still being alive in the present and when I wake up, it takes me awhile to get my bearings straight.
I know that this is supposed to be a weight loss blog and that the ultimate four letter word is "diet", but right now I find my four letter word being something I can't get over... "gone".
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