Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

White Pickups...

I saw a Ford F150 white 4 door pickup yesterday.  My first thought when I see a vehicle like that is my Daddy.  He had one for what seems like years and years but really was only a couple years.  But drove the heck out of it.

I remember taking many trips to see K and the kids in that pickup.  Or a trip to Chamberlain.  It was so my Daddy.  Big and rugged and a workhorse.

Thinking about that brought me back to other memories.  My biggest fear is that people are going to forget my Daddy.  That they are going to forget the good things he did, or the people he loved.  I want people to know that he MATTERED.  To more than just me, My Mama, K and the kiddos.  He MATTERED to the world.

As he lay dying in the hospital my Mama started recieving e-mails with memories in them.  She shared a couple with me and the love that my dad's friends had for him is awesome.  They knew he could be brusk and abrupt - but also still respected him.  He could sell snow to the Eskimos and taught me how to talk to people.  Anyone that knows me IRL knows that I can talk to anyone, anytime about anything...and I probably will.  That's what my dad taught me. 

He taught me that everyone has a story.  Everyone is interesting.  Everyone deserves to know they MATTER.  I knew I mattered to my Daddy and that is important to me.  I also received a very thoughtful e-mail from one of my Mama's friends (thanks TPO!) that let me know just how much I matter to my Mama.  I knew that I did - but it is nice to hear it from others.

As I travel this path that I haven't travelled before, I feel like I'm writing the story.  I am in charge of how I deal and what I do.  Monday?  I didn't cry.  I DIDN'T CRY.  This is the first day since probably mid June that I didn't cry.  That is a big deal and a big step towards the magic called "healing." 

Part of me doesn't want to "heal."  Part of me wants to keep my memories and my feelings and my emotions as raw as possible.  As the days pass, time takes me further and further away from Daddy.  From my ALIVE Daddy.  I don't want to forget him.  I don't want to forget how fiercely loved he was and is.  I don't want people to think that I'm magically just okay and not ask me about him.


I want to talk about him.  I want to tell stories that make me laugh.  I don't want to cry but sometimes the grief sneaks up and I will cry when I'm talking about him.  I want to tell the world about how one Sunday afternoon my Daddy decided that Gigi needed to experience a "real county fair."  We (my Mama, Daddy, Gigi and I) piled into the white pickup and drove for what seemed like hours but was probably just 30 minutes.  We pulled into the town where the "real" county fair was and the fair was....gone.  The "real county fair" was from Monday - Saturday.  We tried to go on Sunday.  My Mama and Daddy chalked it up to a nice Sunday drive and we all laughed.

My Daddy loved to drive.  He could drive and drive and drive.  Nevermind that his 12 year old daughter in the backseat was beyond embarassed and worried as he tried to navigate through southwestern Minnesota by the sun.  BY THE SUN.  There were maps people!  This was pre-GPS days but my Daddy decided to drive around and look at some flood waters and then take every single backroad he could and navigated home by the sun.  I was mortified.  There was no one with us so I don't know WHY it bothered me so much - but I'm a map person.  He did get us home.  We occasionally had to turn around because the road stopped or became a small township gravel road.  And of course it took us twice as long - but we got home. 

He always got us home.  Probably not on them road most travelled...but he got us home.  He loved backroads and hated interstates.  "You don't see anything REAL on the interstate," he would say.  Friends and I drove to Texas one spring break and he mapped out our course.  Through tiny towns and 55 mph signs we made it - had fun and maybe took a little longer.  But we got to see country that we wouldn't have if we would've stuck to the main roads.

So today?  Anywhere I go I'm not going to take my normal route.  In honor of my Daddy today I'm going to take the backroads (which will include just residential streets and not the main streets LOL).  And I'll get where I'm going - with a little more scenery.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

People Change

I feel the need to tell everyone reading this...growing up?  My dad and I didn't get along.  AT.ALL.


"Not a good day today.  First of all, I had to hurry in the shower and didn't get all the conditioner washed out.  And my dad is home.  That is NEVER a good day.  Sometimes I wonder why he even comes home"

-a diary entry by 12 year old me

When I was younger (like 18 and younger) my dad was not my favorite.  Horrible to say yes, but I was a Mama's girl.  My dad used to try to get K and I out of my Mama's hair on Saturday mornings and I flat out refused to go with him.  He and K made a cross country road trip.  Again, I would not go.  That long in the car with my dad AND my sister?  Not happening. 

As I entered my tween and teen years - things went from bad to worse.  My dad traveled for work and was home on the weekends.  I looked at those times as him intruding on our little family of Mama, K and I.  I was mean to him and he wasn't always understanding of me either. 

I'm stubborn.  My dad was stubborn.  We fought about EVERYTHING.  Mostly food, but a lot of other things too.  My Mama told me I needed to listen to my dad.  I didn't.  After all, who was he to waltz in our house and change our routines?  I see now how difficult it had to be to come home to a bratty kid like me.  It's a good thing I've grown up, eh?

I was a picky eater.  I stopped eating red meat for a long time (like 12 years) and that pissed my dad off to NO END.  The meat and potatoes guy and me who would only eat chicken.  I stopped because of a stupid dream and didn't start again because it was kind of fun to make my dad that angry by simply refusing to eat something.  Bratty attitude and I hope Gigi doesn't follow suit. 

My dad and I were like oil and water.  It was just best to keep us apart because if we were together it was likely to be explosive.  I was a Drama Queen and he didn't handle that well.

The year I went to college...things started to change.  My dad  moved me into my dorm room, laid my carpet, put together everything that needed to be put together and then?  They left.  My Mama and my Daddy got in their green pickup and drove out of the parking lot as I looked out my window with the tears rolling down my face.  How could they just leave and not be sad?  I learned later that both of them were sad but put on pretty brave faces for me.

Living on my own in a dorm room - I learned to appreciate my dad a little.  They would come down to look at houses (at this point they had decided to leave the town I grew up in and move to where my school was - I tease that it was because they missed me so much but there were various reasons) and I would have my dad fix something for me.  I would need a new lamp, or my dorm room door didn't open properly (as an aside did you know that you can actually bring a circular SAW into a dorm and cut off the bottom of the door and no one will blink an eye at you??).  They moved here and their new house became "home."

It wasn't just home for me, but also my friends.  We would go to my parents house for a hot tub night, a grilling night (with my dad manning the grill of course) or just to go.  My sophomore year of college I got really sick and was hospitalized for 12 long days.  Those days I realized just how lucky I was that my family was not only living in the same town as me, but also were just THERE for me.

When I moved into a house off campus my dad became more and more handy to me.  By this point - I realized that maybe he was a pretty cool guy and that he didn't deserve my brattiness when I was young. 

Life went on.  I kept realizing that maybe...just maybe...the reason that my dad and I fought so much was because of certain parts of our personality were alike.  Stubborn much?

I didn't really appreciate my Daddy fully until the day that he moved Gigi and I out of our townhouse and brought us home.  I never knew the strength he had or the fierceness of his protection until that day.  I'd never needed to know it.  But that day?  He would've killed someone to make sure we were safe.

Gigi and I lived with Daddy and Mama for four years.  Four years as an adult getting to know my parents...as adults.  My Daddy was pretty cool.  I looked to him for all sorts of advice.  I looked to him as a mentor and not just my Daddy.

My Mama told me not long after Gigi was born that my Dad had told her, "She was ready to be a mom.  She's going to be a good one.  I'm proud of her."  My Daddy?  Was proud of ME.  He was proud of the one thing that I think I'm good at.  Being a mom. 

I was proud of my Daddy.  I didn't realize until after he was gone how many lives he had touched...how many people he mentored...or just how many people loved him.  I loved him. 

I am so happy that I was able to redeem my bratty kid self as an adult.  I am  happy that I left nothing unsaid to my Daddy.  I am happy that he knew how much I loved him and how much I would miss him.  I am happy to know that he was at peace at the end and knew he was headed for a better place.  I am happy that I took the last few months of his life to appreciate my Daddy and realize how much he meant to me. 

At least I thought I knew how much he meant to me.  It wasn't until after he died that I realized just how BIG the whole would be in my life...in my heart...with him gone.  I didn't realize how angry I would be that he was so young when he died and angry that he will not be around to be Papa to Gigi anymore.  He was one of the good ones...he loved his grandkids just like he loved his kids.  It's a shame I didn't see that love when I was a child, but do feel as though I see it now.

In the last few days I was not able to sit in my dad's hospital room like my Mama could or K could.  I couldn't see my strong Daddy in pain or uncomfortable or just not HIM.  I would go in every so often just to see him and tell him how much I loved him.  I didn't want to remember him that way - but yet those are the most prevalent memories now.  I hope someday that the memories that come to me immediately are happy ones and the bad ones are gone.

I haven't had the heart to have Gigi stop saying "God Bless Papa" in her nightly prayers.  We do the old "Now I lay me down to sleep..." standard but add on our special God Bless's at the end.  It's automatic to say "God Bless Grandma and Papa...K and P..."  I just can't have her stop.  He still deserves to be blessed in Heaven, right? 

Saturday, August 14, 2010

The Camper

Much better picture of my new ink. Not icky. And you can see the placement of it too :) My Mama HATES it. But she hates all tattoos so I'm not going to feel bad.


The good stuff from our trip to Mama and Daddy's camper...

1. We got to drink red Gatorade


2. It was Kids Fest and there was a big water slide (which Gigi went down a total of ONCE and hated it. It was "too scary" )

3. They gave us popsicles!



4. Face Painting!!


5. Gigi is FUNNY. I told her on the way there to close her eyes and the trip would go faster. She looked at me and said, "You close YOUR eyes. Are your eyes closed? Why aren't we going faster?" That kid. My mom always told us that if we just closed our eyes that we would go faster. Of course it seemed like it because we slept instead of asked if we were there yet 475,679 times. But my kid? My kid thinks it will go faster if *I* sleep.


And then the hard stuff.

The camper was one of my Daddy's favorite places. I think it may be my Mama's favorite place in the world. It was H.A.R.D. to go there on Friday evening. It was exactly a month since Daddy died and the lake is HIM. It's my Mama and my Daddy - fishing, camping and visiting with friends. It's my Daddy's tricked out golf cart and campfires. It's "camping" at it's finest. With a fifth wheel camper, beds that are soft, a bathroom in the camper, a fireplace AND air conditioning.

It was all those things and everything looked exactly the same as when I had been there last summer. Except my Daddy wasn't there. My Daddy wasn't there to take us for a crazy boat ride and go under the bridges. My Daddy wasn't there to take Gigi fishing. My Daddy wasn't there to take us on golf cart rides just to pass the time. My Daddy wasn't there.

There were a few tears, but not many. I am trying so hard to be strong for Gracey and my Mama. But sometimes? I just want to curl into a little ball and make the whole world go away so I can just cry and cry. I miss my Daddy. The camper smelled like him. His shoes were there. Gigi and I took the golf cart for a drive and it ran out of juice (it's electric). He wasn't there to laugh at us...or save us.

Our first weekend at the camper without him is over. We had fun but something was missing. Gigi got to drive a little electric boat. As we were waiting in line I glanced down at the dock and saw a man with a t-shirt very similar to one of my dad's. For a moment...just a moment he was THERE. He was walking on that dock after docking the blue boat. He was coming up to get us. And then I realized that it wasn't him. It was actually one of his friends. I was glad to have sunglasses on so I didn't have to explain to anyone why I was standing in line with Gigi with tears in my eyes.

Last night before going to bed I actually thought to myself..."self (because I always begin that way :) ) this is the first time at the camper that we won't get awakened at 6:00 because my dad is making coffee." Sort of sad but exciting at the same time if you know what I mean. Sleep is good in any form! But Gigi fixed that whole sleeping in thing. She was up at 6:00 this morning! That child has not seen 6:00 EVER except for when she was a baby and would wake up to eat at that time and go back to sleep.

Thanks Daddy for the early wake up call.

We got through it. We didn't get the boat in the water (although I'm sure Mama is a good boat driver) and we didn't fish. We didn't get cooler after cooler full of ice. We didn't hear the coffee grinder and paper at 6:00 am. But we knew he was there. Gigi talks about him A LOT. She talks of how he was looking down at us and smiling when we were on the red golf cart. We saw a Cessna airplane and we just knew that Papa was telling us hello.

One weekend down without him...several decades to go.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Memories...


The last couple days I have had constant thought about my Daddy and memories of him. These are just a few I jotted down...

I want to remember...
* that he always ordered his Starbucks by saying "Tall. Black. Bold. Own cup." Every time. I bought him his last Starbucks last week.
*that after making fun of my Birkenstocks he actually tried a pair on and wore them for the last 10 years religiously
*his blue eyes
*that Gigi liked to tickle his toes and often that is the closest she would get to him
*the way his eyes would light up when his grandkids came in the room
*the smile in his heart the day he bought Green Girl, his first airplane and the pride he took in Ruby - his 2nd
*the grief he had when he sold Ruby - he was the saddest I had ever seen him that day
*how he used to play the Fun Machine organ at Christmas time and "our" song that included the lyrics "Please take me home...and LOVE-A me"
*his favorite restaurant was a hole in the wall steakhouse and how it took him so long to figure out how Mom knew he went there. (He smelled like smoke)
*him fishing - or really him driving the boat to take Mama fishing
*how he would always say he wanted something for a gift at Christmas and Birthday time but two days later would buy it himself
*how much he loved Lulu excel at everything
*how much it hurt him when Mo was diagnosed
*the anguish he had to have gone through knowing that Gigi and I were not living in a safe situation
*his collection of golf shirts and travel mugs
*how every meal he would spill something on his shirt
*wearing his matching jammies on Christmas morning
*him reading the Christmas story from the bible when we couldn't go to church on Christmas Eve because of a snowstorm
*him coming to my house with a snowblower that he left here
*the playhouse he built for Gigi that took less time than the 'Mansion in Minutes' dollhouse that he made for Lulu
*that Gigi thinks her Papa can fix ANYTHING
*that when my friends were trying to take down my loft in college (two years in a row!) they had such an awful time because he had tightened everything so tight. He didn't want me to fall.
*that my freshman year my carpet was wall to wall because my Daddy bought it off the roll. He installed it and then took my door off and cut off part of it because the carpet was thick. Shhhh...don't tell anyone at Augie
*watching he and my mom drive away in their green pickup after dropping me off at college. They left abruptly just to get it over with. I watched them drive away from my window sobbing.
*how I would tell anyone that my parents were moving here my sophomore year that they were moving solely because they missed me. In reality it was a move that made sense and was good - and deep down I was excited to have them here. I had a year alone to spread my wings then my comfort came back close - not too close - but in the same city
*how my dad used to drive around. Looking at big houses, looking at cars, looking at Christmas lights. He liked to drive.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and I'm sure I'll have lots of these notes in the coming days and weeks.

If you knew my Daddy, what was your favorite memory of him? What do you not want to forget? What do you want me to know that I might not know?