Beckies Spot

I smiled as I said that out loud. As I went room to room greeting my patients, I wrote that on their boards. “Oh-four, oh-six, oh-eight.”  It was the date that Sunday.  I was at work, but that day it wasn’t just ‘work.’  The night before, I had stayed up all night praying.  Literally, all night.  Asking God for mercy and strength.  See, Daddy was sick, and no one in my family knew just how sick he was- other than myself.  He was in the very same hospital that I worked in and he was on my patient list.  I knew how sick he was, I knew the pain would come for him, and I could only pray for mercy and strength.

That evening, Daddy passed away.  I remember standing there, me holding one hand and my sister holding the other…..watching him.  Knowing that it was only a matter of minutes, if that.  I stood there praying silently that God would spare him the pain I see on patient’s faces every day.  Begging God to wrap my family in His arms.  And then He was gone.  Just like that.

I had just lost another one whom I loved so dearly….and so, in the depths of my being, I knew it was the end all, be all.  I was too familiar with the routine that my family would stumble through in the upcoming week and months.  That night, I went home and began the routine.  The phone calls were made, so many tears were cried and then I slept a deeper sleep than I ever had before.  From pure exhaustion, from emotional destruction, from an overwhelming sadness.  The week was full of family and friends surrounding us with love and celebrating Daddy’s life.  And then the real sadness kicked in.  Back to the same old stuff….except that it wasn’t.  We were forced to go on with our lives….because only the deceased are relieved of their duties.  After the family and friends were on their way, we still had to deal with so much.  Seeing ‘his’ chair that he would never again rock in.  Finding ‘his’ little stash of misc things.  Going through all of his things.  Not a single person in my immediate family made it through the months following Daddy’s death without at least one complete breakdown.  Some of us relied on Xanax to get us through, others on alcohol and a little vitamin called THC and one of us relied soley on prayer.  Each of us dealt with it in our own way- trying not to lean on those who had traveled the road with us.  We all wanted each other to think that we were just fine.  It was far from the truth.

In the months following ‘his’ death, Heather and I moved Mom in with us.  It was so hard for her to be in their home.  The home they had built together and surrounded by their things.  I packed up their life into totes and put it all away. (Which my mom was both grateful and incredibly resentful towards me for).  After a bit, Brent and I moved in to ‘their’ house with a friend of ours….and we did our best to make it our own.

At first, it was incredibly hard to see the mail that kept coming for Daddy.  Now it’s hard to accept that it doesn’t come.  We still encounter the random person who doesn’t know ‘he’ is gone.  In the beginning, when someone would ask how he was, my answer was always “He’s been ultimately healed.”  Just goes to show you how things change.  In January, I was hanging out with my friend Kristin, her brother’s friend Jeff, Stacy and her boyfriend “Buster.”  Buster’s dad and mine worked together for many many years, and I hadn’t seen him since his own father’s funeral years ago.  While sitting around over a drink he says “So how the hell is your dad?  What’s that old coot up to these days?”  Everyone else there turned to look at me and awaited my reaction.  I simply said “Well, he’s dead now.”  Kristin, in her alcohol induced state of semi-consciousness, dropped her drink.  It was the truth and there wasn’t any easier of a way to put it to him.  Of course he felt like an ass and then wanted to know what happened.  We talked and it was fine.  While I know my voice shook, I didn’t shatter.

I had a point several months ago where it pained me to really wash my vanity in my bathroom.  You see, there were a few of Daddy’s whiskers behind the faucet…I could see them, I knew they were there.  But I didn’t want to wipe them away.  For if I did, they would never reappear.  I came to a point where I wiped them off the vanity and into my hand, took them outside and blew them into the wind.  I cried the whole time.  And I thought that perhaps that was the last little bit of him I would find.  There are many many things in my house that were his….I like it that way and they fit in well.  I chose to keep them as a reminder of the man who I learned to look to with adoration in my adult years, not just in innocent childhood.  Just last week, I was cleaning my bathroom, top to bottom and found a little basket up on top of the cupboard above my toilet.  It was in plain view, but I hadn’t noticed it before.  I got up there and pulled the basket into my hand and just stared at what was in it.  A bottle of ‘his’ aftershave.  I opened it up and smelled it.  It was the aftershave he wore all the time!  Half full and dutsy….but there it was.  I closed my eyes and smelled it again- for a moment, my world seemed right again.

In the last year, I have gone through a lot of different phases in regards to Daddy’s passing.  I have cried until I had nothing left, I have been angry.  I don’t know who I was angry at- perhaps myself- but I was angry.  I knew that it wasn’t God….for He had only done what I asked and spared Daddy anymore pain.  I went through a period where I didn’t acknowledge his death- a numbness if you will.  I learned to rely on my family and my friends.  They have been my shoulders to cry on, my support when I couldn’t stand on my own and never ending sets of ears.  When I get into a funk and can’t pull myself out of it, they wait.  They wait for me to realize they are still there and they make themselves available to me day or night.  They are understanding if I don’t want to talk about it, or if I do.  Without my family who are my friends and my friends who are my family, I would not be okay.

Brent has taken over the role of “the man in my life.”  There is no other man in my life who means so much.  Daddy’s opinion mattered….and while “what would Daddy think?” is always in my mind, I now look to Brent for that guidance.  He is the man in my life.  He was also the last man that Daddy gave his blessing for me to marry.  And who knows?  Not today, but I’m not saying “never.”

I have learned to prioritize and I know what matters and doesn’t.  I have let go of things this past year that I usually would not have let go of.  I have faced demons.  I believe that there is nothing in my life that was as hard as losing him.  He wasn’t a sports icon.  Not a famous politician.  Not a Doctor or a lawyer.  He did, however, teach me to play softball, teach me what was right and wrong, he patched up my wounds and his law was his law.  He was a hard worker who spent many years of his life alone on the road, providing a decent living for his family.  He loved his family and he loved Jesus.  I couldn’t have asked for anything better in a parent.  He was my all american hero.

If I was to be asked if I would trade a year of my life for one more hour with him, my answer would be “no.”  I would not want to say goodbye again.  I would not want him back in the pain he was in.  If I could have him back for the rest of my life and have him be whole and healed?  Well, see, I’ve got that.  I just have to wait a while longer.  It is through my salvation that I know I will, once again, be reunited with him.

I miss him so much.  But I know that he is better off now than he ever was.  And that is what I can be grateful for.

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