now now now

tomorrow we are going to bury my Dad.

Nobody talks about grief because if make people uncomfortable and feel awful themselves and so we all avoid it.

Drink sleep clean work run get away from the pain.

I don’t want to avoid it because then if puts it off. YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT.

My poor brothers and sisters and Mom are swimming down this river with me.

Dad used to call me all day long for the last few years. He would say “Hey, how is it going, what is new?” I had to have things going on so I could answer that question with something interesting. Thank goodness for airbnb. he wanted to hear  all about he guests. He wanted to know what I was painting. what was growing. what my husband was doing. Every detail. If I didn’t call him for a few days he thought I was mad at him.

When I wrote his book we spent tons and tons of hours together talking about his feelings. Maybe he told me things nobody else knew. I was sort of his sounding board. I was his priest.

He couldn’t see anymore but his mind was sharp as a tack. Nothing slipped by him. He became an expert of reading your emotions from your voice.

Dad was a man who loved to be working so when his body failed to be very movable, I know he tried to live through his kids and wife. We became his hand and feet . Sometimes he would want us to help someone who did not want help. We did it anyway just to make him feel better.

I wish I did not have to see his body go into the ground Monday. I wish I could just put him in my pocket and haul him around .

sometimes you can talk to someone and still feel alone, but not him. You felt the opposite of alone. He was in your corner  My husband used to have long talks with him and Dad would give him advise and treat him like a son. Dad absorbed people  He really knew how to love