Clematis

This is my first woodcarving...you can see how big it is since my hand is there for scale.

My parents weren't good parents either, but they had real strengths as people. My mother was a gifted artist and my father was brilliant. I really struggled when my mother died because she had been so awful to me until the very end. I lost any fantasy that there would ever be anything good between us. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to work things out with my father because it enabled us to be so close at the end. I wish things had been different earlier, but they weren't. Nevertheless, I feel a bond with him that is beyond anything I can explain. It was so good for me to have those ten years with my dad when things were good between us. I was good to him and he was good to me; I helped him and he helped me. Not that things were perfect, but it was pretty great. And there was something that was very restorative and healing about having that truly supportive relationship with him at the end. In music, the last chord is really important...or even the entire ending and resolution. If you play a piece well and destroy the ending, it's really bad because that's what sticks in the listener's mind. Ending a piece well can make up for some problems earlier in the piece because the lovely end and resolving chord stays in the mind. This last is what my dad and I had. It ended well. But it was a lot better than one final good chord - we had ten years and that is a big chunk of anyone's life. But now, I am going through some phase of grief that I really fail to comprehend. I feel like I am in a time warp. Sometimes it seems like I have moved into the past - even before my lifetime or even my father's lifetime in going through these old family things. And sometimes I feel like my dad is now living through me and it is like a dream state. Like this... I found a humidor in my dad's garage and am not sure whose it was, but it is a really magnificent wooden box. My dad hated smoking and certainly didn't smoke cigars, but his father did. I found a set of carving tools...it appears that my dad was thinking of taking up woodcarving but never actually used the tools. I am doing it for him, and using the humidor in which to keep the tools, my sharpening stuff, etc. The night before last I dreamed about that box all night long as it changed size, purpose, and everything else as different aspects of my real life and dream life flowed through that box. And I have no idea what that means...

I know what you mean...I thought my dad was amazing when I was little. For me, he was always the one; he did all the cool stuff. Like anyone, he had a good side and a bad side. He was wicked smart and didn't tolerate mediocrity or stupid behavior. He had a quick temper and a sense of humor that ran from dry to a bit twisted. He was a better dad to little kids than teenagers and young adults; I had some things to work out with him, but having done so, I was able to have a great relationship with him toward the end of his life. I suppose everyone has regrets, no matter what. I with I had been able to know him better when we were younger, but it is what it is. I'm glad you were able to share what you did with your dad; he sounds like he was a great father.

Still going through my dad's stuff and it's still really hard. In some ways it's easier because it's been longer since he died, but I hit pockets of things that are really hard. Like when I came across his gloves and put my own hands inside them and it was just like looking at his hands, remembering him coming in from shoveling the snow - when I was too little to be out there helping. That was hard. Now I have been going through his tools and woodworking things in the garage. Tools for all of the things he did with his hands - and there was sure a lot he did with his hands. He used to have a shop in the basement. I remember it so clearly...I was fascinated by it and all he did there, but I really had to stay back and keep out of his way. When he was not in his shop it was the most forbidden place in the house for many reasons. When he moved to AZ I asked him about his shop and he said, "Oh, I got rid of all that stuff" and went on about how excited people got about tools being sold and how he gave some things to his friend Denny and so on. Now I realize that what he meant was mostly that he got rid of his big workbench, and the big tools that were like furniture - drill press, table saw, band saw, and that kind of thing. Hand tools, hand held power tools, and all the little things that went with it. There is box after box after box of it. Some of things I remember so clearly. I remember his using and caring for them like little treasures. Now they are mine, but minus the stories. I wish I could know more about what they meant to him and where they came from. Some of this stuff came from my mother's father; I know since his name or some other indication is on them. Lately I feel like I am hypnotized in a time warp. I miss the old man who was my best friend and companion in the last ten years of his life. I miss the busy active guy who was the father of my youth. I am trying to reconcile the two together and come to grips with who he really was. There are more questions than answers. Today I ran across a notebook that he kept in the mid 1950's, full of all kinds of details about plastics and whatnot - chemical and physical properties. It was alphabetized in a notebook meant for addresses and it was stuffed full of typed and handwritten technical information - I have almost no idea what any of it even is. My dad was a really brilliant guy who had a very technical career and then came home and did woodworking. I guess there is no wonder why my sisters felt like they didn't even know him at all. He kept us out of his workshop and his technical life was much too complex for us to even begin to follow. By the time he came to AZ they were done with him and had been done with him for a long time, I think. I saw him come out of the shadows when my mother died and marveled at the nice man who looked like my mysterious dad but who actually talked. But all that stuff from his mysterious past was closed up in a box that never opened. When I asked him about things from his years of work and woodworking and all that, I would get vague answers like, "Oh that was a long time ago". I have no answers but now all of those tools and bits are mine, gradually intermingling into my possessions and my life as I drift through the past and the present at once. Who was this man and who am I? I feel rather lost and cut adrift, but remain busy. I found a set of woodcarving tools - very nice ones and unused - in his garage. Now I am woodcarving with my father's tools in the now as I drift around in the past in my mind...

I love that it has my dad in the middle of it...I'm sure he never dreamed he would be featured fading into a flower, but I think he would like it.

Yes, she is well-loved and she eats great food. She is very photogenic...I think that's partly due to her striking looks and partly due to her willingness to be photographed. Also, I take tons of pictures of Lena, and just like anything you do a lot of, I've gotten better and better at getting good shots of her. It is so rewarding to have a pet like Lena and be able to share her like I do. I spent a good part of the day delivering Valentine's cards with this picture; Lena came with me to deliver the ones that were close to home. Everyone was really delighted, and there were about sixty of them. It made me happy too. It is without a doubt the coolest Valentine's day ever!

It's been a year now - actually it will be 13 months tomorrow. I seem to have pretty well recovered from the car accident 9 months ago - had my last treatment session last week. It is a busy semester - I am taking three classes this semester and two of them are in Prescott - an 1-1/2 hour drive away over a mountain pass. Doing that twice a week has been more of a burden than I had thought, but I am getting through it. On the plus side, I think I am going to graduate this semester, after completing the two classes in Prescott. I may not really need another degree (this is my fifth), but I am so close I might as well complete the degree. And you never know - having some kind of degree in fine art, even if it is only an associate's degree. Tomorrow is Valentine's day and Lena (with my assistance) is sending valentine's greetings to all of her friends and fans. This started with just her clients - the kids who read to her and the elderly people she sees at the homes - but now they are going to everyone she knows. So here is one for you - my friends here on the site. This is a very special image for me. I did it in Photoshop. I took this picture of Lena at a nursing facility where my dad stayed for five days during the last few weeks of his life. She was lying on top of him, looking very possessive, and he was wearing a red plaid shirt and khaki pants. Rather than blend around her fur, which is challenging in Photoshop, I blended his clothing into the pink Hibiscus, which has my dad right in the middle of this piece. It warms my sad heart... =^. .^=

Merhaba. I am so sorry to hear about your dad. My dad died ( it will be thirteen months tomorrow) and I miss him every day. I took care of him during his last ten years of decline with Parkinson's disease. I think all of the "what if"s are inescapable. I don't have them as bad as I did in the beginning but they still creep up on me. I hope you keep coming back to the site here. It has helped me - has helped a lot of us - enormously. Laura

What a great picture! I agree - who could resist a face like that?

Who knows? Jewel may also be at large. Lena seems to think so. I'll keep an eye out for her to see if she's still about or if she returns. While I was there I talked to the current volunteer coordinator at the Humane Society. I used to do Twitter for them and at some point someone else said they wanted to do it and she took it, but never did much with the Twitter account. The new staff said they would love to have me do it again. Yay!!! I used to take pictures of cats and dogs and photoshop them onto better backgrounds - like at my sister Diane's beautiful house (hahaha). I took a bunch of pictures of her house one day when she wasn't there to help the homeless cats and dogs. It helped them to get adopted more quickly - more so than against a cement block wall. In fact, that was how I found Lena. I was on their web site shopping around for a cat or dog to photoshop and I saw her picture. Once I saw her, I just grabbed my keys and got in the car to go get her. It was only later that I remembered that I had allergies and supposedly was not able to live with a cat... But it worked out and 4-1/2 years later here we are, me and Lena all blissed out together!

I was also able to give them her history and send along with her my dad's old fleece vest that I had put out on my back porch for Jade and Jewel to use as a bed when they were outside. So she has something cozy that smells like her and her sister. It may help her adjust to her new situation.

How could I not? I only know that desperate people do desperate things, and my neighbor Dhanya was not a nice person before her current situation. She actually turned her phone off or blocked me in the middle of my sending her messages, like she didn't want to hear about Jade crying in the rain at her door. And who knows what has happened to the other cat - they had two, sisters, Jewel and Jade. She may assume I will take care of the situation, which I am. I wonder what she told her almost 9-year-old daughter about what happened to her cat(s). My elderly neighbor across the street told me that she saw Dhanya trying to catch the other cat, Jewel, the day she moved. Jewel may also be on the loose. Lena keeps meowing at the back door, like she always did when Jewel was out there. It's hard to tell which is worse, abandoning two cats, or moving with her "outside cat" Jewel and abandoning Jade, her "inside cat" to the outdoors...

My horrible neighbor Dhanya has finally moved. She left one of her cats, Jade, behind. I thought there must have been a mixup like the cat got nervous because they were moving, and send her a message last night telling her that her cat was outside on a rainy night crying to get into the now-empty house. No answer, but I didn't see the cat today and I thought Dhanya must have picked up her cat today when she came to clean. Nope. Tonight Dhanya, her daughter, and the other cat are gone but Jade was outside crying in the rain again. I sent Dhanya a text and three pitiful video messages of her cat crying outside the locked door, asking her if she could come get Jade and what should I do. I got no answer but the phone reported that the first two video messages and the text were read right after I sent them. I finally took Jade into my garage and set her up with a litter box, food, water, and a fleece vest she and her sister had used as a bed on my back porch (so it smells like her and her sister). I can't keep Jade and will take her to the Humane society in the morning. I have a small amount of cat allergy, and the last time I went from one cat to two cats I developed catastrophic allergies and asthmatic reactions to cats and had to find new homes for both cats and it took me 15 years to recover to a point where I could have a cat again. I couldn't risk of possibly jeopardizing my ability to live with Lena - and her home with me - by taking in another cat. Jade is a sweet cat and I am sure another home can be found for her. Anyway, it's hard for me to fathom how people abandon their own pets.

My closest friend, who is very much a cultural and not religious Jew, suggested to me in a text that I light a Yahrzeit cancel for my dad, but I was already at my friend Greg's house and had no candle. Now it is a day late. My calendar says it is National Strawberry Ice Cream Day. My dad loved strawberry ice cream. Safeway has some wonderful little strawberry ice cream sandwiches on waffle cookies. I don't know if he ever tried them but he would have loved them. Should I get some and share the ice cream and my thoughts with my dad over a candle tonight? Is that too far afield, or is that just how you make your own traditions - that my dad's Yahrzeit becomes mingled together with strawberry ice cream sandwiches?

Thank you, Marty. I bought this book in the spring or so, on your recommendation, but didn't start really going through it until a few days ago to look up the Yahrzeit traditions. Some of these things are hard for me to do...the Kaddish is to be read by ten or more, but you don't always have ten. I was working at the Tucson State Prison at the time of the the Trade Center attack and used to walk from one yard to another rather than taking the (inmate-driven) bus like almost everyone did. So I invariably walked alone, which was serene in the midst of a hostile and bizarre environment. During those first months when we were all in shock, I would say Kaddish alone as I walked. Not very traditional but it seemed to me like the thing to do. After my dad died I agonized over the Jewish traditions, but some of them I couldn't really follow. I am an isolated convert. The Aninut is about preparing the body for burial and never leaving it alone, since the soul is believed to be between this world and the next. I got the message straightaway that my dad's spirit was with me and not with his body. I think that figured in my not going to the morgue - his telling me there was no point in it since I didn't have to ID the body or anything since he was wearing a hospital bracelet. He actually told me that. Looking back at it, it seems like a wisecrack that was so typical of his dry humor. And preparing the body for burial? He was not Jewish and wanted to be cremated and buried with my mother in PA. Toward the end, he started saying that he wanted to have my mother exhumed and brought out to AZ so that we could all be together. I interpreted that as meaning that he still wanted to be with her but didn't want to leave me. I have the sense now that he is not all that worried about his ashes, and this guy who was never spiritual when he was alive is a lot more familiar with the spiritual realm now that he is of it. His ashes are still with me, but most of it will go to PA this summer and the rest will stay with me in a little keepsake urn that matches the big urn. I feel funny about interpreting these ancient traditions based on my own needs and lifestyle, but don't know what else to do. I am a isolated and a convert; I don't live in a Jewish community and have no Jewish friends nearby. I very much dislike the new rabbi at the nearby synagogue, and could not go to services for a long time after my dad died anyway because I got home too late from work on the reservation on Friday nights. Sitting Shiva involves seven days to stay at home, cover the mirrors, don't wear clean clothes, and so on. That means you have to have people coming to your house, bring you food. A lot of food. Not only for you, but for the other mourners. You can't do that one alone. I went to the grocery store in a state of paralysis and hunger. I finally called my sister and she helped direct me through the store to find things like ready-made baked macaroni and cheese that I could just take home to eat. I have tried to get someone to go to services with me as I still haven't been since my father's death but it hasn't worked out. I think I fear they will tell me that I am not doing it right, but that is probably unrealistic. My Jewish friends are very atheistic and anti religion, and my other friends seem uncomfortable with the idea of going to an unfamiliar service. But Saturday I was in the pool chatting about the weather with a woman I have seem but don't know. I said something about my father's Yahrzeit, and didn't have to explain...as it turns out, she is Jewish and she offered to go with me, making sure that I had her name and phone number. I don't know why, but trying to follow some of these traditions around my father's death means more to me than anything else in the 20 years since I converted. But I'm not sure about my own interpretations...

I keep thinking about the night my dad died. I spent the afternoon with him at the rehab hospital, spoon fed him dinner, and then drove home. Sometimes I feel like I am reliving it and am not sure why exactly. I tried to get hold of my sisters. My dad told me that his father was in the room with us and I had a bad feeling about that. I asked the charge nurse if he was ok and she said he was. I should have tried to spend the night there in the room with him but I was so so tired. There had been so many late nights in ERs and hospitals and late night paramedics at my house or his house and my hoping that I wouldn't be up all night on a night when I had to drive out to the reservation at 4:30 the next morning. I spent winter break from school sleepless every night and exhausted every day worrying about him and trying to figure out what to do. That night I got home after an hour and a half drive from Prescott; as I was opening the door the hospital called and said he had gone to the ER because his blood pressure had dropped. With Parkinson's that happened a lot-the low blood pressure. I had several calls with the ER and he stabilized and was put on a regular floor. I wondered if I should drive back over to Prescott. Had he been at the hospital in town I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but jumped in the car to go back to the hospital. But driving over the mountain when I was so tired - I just wasn't sure I could make it. Maybe I should have gone anyway. I woke up in the middle of that night because Lena was licking my face. Lick lick lick. Lick lick lick. She never licks my face. There had been a call from the hospital saying that he wasn't doing well; they left a message. He was a DNR. The phone message was about ten minutes before his time of death. Lena was trying to wake me up; I think my dad's spirit was in the room with me. I called the hospital back and they told me he had died. I didn't know what to do; I called the hospice people, called the mortician, called my sisters. The mortician told me he would pick up my dad. I never went to the hospital where he died - maybe I should have. I think they told me he was already in the morgue. Should I have gone anyway? Why do I keep thinking about that? I went to the rehab hospital where he had been staying and got his things. I never saw him after he died; was I supposed to? I think I remember him telling me not to bother because he was there with me and no longer with his body. I'm not sure why I'm back to rehashing all of this and back to not sleeping...

Glad to hear that Arlie is better. It's scary when our fur babies are sick... My dad died in the middle of the night and so which day is the anniversary date is a little confusing. Yesterday was the anniversary of his last day alive, but today is the date that I see over and over on his death certificate when I handle his affairs. Last night seemed like the time to observe his Yahrzeit with my friend Greg and his family, especially since it was shabbat and so we lit the shabbat candles, said the Mourner's Kaddish, and Greg made challah out of pizza dough. I came home and went to bed feeling like I was in free fall and might die in my sleep like my dad died in my sleep/his sleep a year ago. I don't know where I got the idea that I would die in a year or less after his death. But I am still alive. I am not sure what the anniversary is supposed to be like or what I am supposed to do. I am Jewish but don't really know a lot about some of the customs since I am a convert and didn't grow up with it. Observing a Yahrzeit includes saying Kaddish and acts of Mitzvah in the name of the loved one who has died. I made a special visit to my 96-year-old new friend at the nursing home today. I am learning Turkish to talk to her - she doesn't speak English. Usually I bring Lena but today I brought her some mini raspberry strudels today and we shared them. She is now on hospice and I know her daughter is worried. Having gone through what I did with my dad near the end, I really feel for her daughter. It must be hard having her mother at a home for her safety, but where she cannot really communicate with the staff.

It is so hard to know, but if anything I think the messages may be larger than and beyond the superficial. I kept thinking that my mother was telling me to take care of my dad and eventually the "rabbit messages" stopped and all of the rabbits I encountered were totally normal rabbits. I thought she stopped because she finally believed that I was devoted to taking care of him. Then, a few months before my dad died I started seeing rabbits that seemed to be trying to tell me something. My fear was that she was coming to take him with her and that he would soon be gone. At some point I started to get the idea that she was telling me that she loved me and that she had always loved me. I never got this message while she was alive and so it was hard to hear it from the rabbits. I wondered if maybe she had given up on my hearing her and started trying to reach me again because she knew he was going to leave me soon. I think maybe she was trying to help me - that if I knew that I really did have a mother who loved me all along it would help when I lost my father. I don't know if it helped because I felt like I lost my mother all over again. I think that when those who have left us make the effort to send us messages through animals, the messages are most likely to be profound and from the heart. I see it like this; before the telephone, if you wanted a fast message it went by telegram. Telegram messages were only for urgent messages and due to cost they were very short. If instant communication is very easy and cheap/plentiful, you can go on and on. My dad has been rather chatty since his death; it seems he found a way to communicate with me easily and I hear him easily. Therefore I get a stream of stuff from him...telling me I should go get the fire extinguisher from the other house, buy the better tires, get some gas so I don't run out, and so on. From my mother it has been more like telegrams - two of them in 12 years - to take care of my dad and that she always loved me even though it might have seemed otherwise. I think my dad also has bigger messages, but I have to read between the lines to find them. Same thing when he was alive. When I was really distraught about something, his reaction was always to try to throw money at the problem. He never said it, but I think the underlying message was that it grieved him to see me hurt or distraught, and he tried to fit whatever the problem was in the only way he thought he could.

When my mother died 12 years ago I had quite a number of odd experiences with rabbits - like where one would come running up to me on a trail and seemed to be trying to say something to me. Since she was crazy about rabbits since she was little, I got the idea that she was trying to tell me something. It was hard to figure out what it was but it seemed she was telling me to take care of my dad. I think the spirits of those who have gone are around us, but it can be hard to recognize them, or what they are telling us.

Today is the one-year anniversary date of the last day of my dad's life. I seem to be having trouble putting one foot in front of the other, completing tasks, returning texts and phone calls, and so on. Last night I had one dream after another about my dad's house and trying to get the remainder of his stuff into storage before the house forecloses, and this morning I had trouble getting out of bed and keep crying. I had thought the one-year anniversary thing was going well, but I'm not sure. Maybe this is just how it is...

It sounds like you are really going through a lot at once, and I think that makes it hard to sort things out. I lost my dad in January 2016, lost my beloved aunt two months later, and then was had a car accident related head injury in May, just four months later, and it has been hard to tell if my exhaustion, anxiety, irritation, brain fog, and so on was related to the head injury, the grief, or both. I think the delayed grief is common because people can't really deal with one loss at the time it occurs for one or more reasons. My mother died in 2005, the same summer I graduated grad school as a school psychologist, relocated to a new job in my new profession. Also that summer I had foot surgery and a respiratory infection I could not shake because I was in between doctors and insurance policies, and had more than a little stress. I travelled across the country to her funeral (with a post-surgery boot) and spoke at the gravesite. My sisters and I all had complicated relationships with her because she was so narcissistic. I thought my grieving for her was all there was. As he came out of the shadows where he had been all my life, I saw things about my dad I had never seen and I also saw that my sisters had no interest in him. I was terrified that this father I had never really known would shortly follow my mother. I coaxed him to move to AZ from PA, telling him he would have more fun out here with me. He was almost 80 and had Parkinson's. We became the best of friends and I took care of him for a decade, as he declined. I helped him and he helped me; he was very supportive and totally had my back. I felt more love and acceptance from him in those ten years than I have ever had from anyone in my life. We talked constantly, I saw him almost every day, we shared many many meals, and he helped me when I needed it - like when I lost my job. I also had the opportunity to get to know my mother - even after her passing - through him, and to understand many things from the family history that had never made sense. Losing my father has been a devastating loss; I lost my best friend, the person who had become my significant other and constant companion, my safety net, and a large focus of my life (taking care of him) as well as losing the my dad - the father of my childhood and youth. But additionally I lost my connection to my mother and all of my grandparents and aunts and uncles and my entire past. Also, my sisters stopped talking to me. I felt like I was totally alone in the world and had only my cat and my father's possessions that I was sifting through, searching for something to hold onto. I felt like I was in free fall and totally cast adrift in space. I think a lot of that was an accumulation of delayed grief, but compounded by the burden of dealing with my father's estate alone and having to consolidate our two households into one, the fear of having lost my security/safety net, having lost half of my work, and having to handle all of this in a giant brain fog of a head injury. My father clung to me after losing his wife, whom he had loved since they were children, and I reassured him over and over that I would never leave him and would do absolutely anything he needed for the rest of his life no matter how bad it got. He was, I eventually realized, equally committed to me, but that wasn't apparent to either of us at the start. Had he decided to remarry, I would have known in my head that he had every right to pursue happiness and remarry, and I was his daughter and not a wife to him. But I am positive that I would have felt betrayed and devastated by that loss. Of course I would have lost him in the end anyway, but it would have been worse to have lost him twice - to his new wife and then to death. It would have been horrible to watch her in the position of sifting through our family's treasures deciding what to do with things. Anyway, it doesn't seem like your grief has come crashing out of nowhere; I think it's been all around you all along. More like you're out swimming in an ocean of grief and overwhelming feelings for years now. But any of us can deal with only so much at once. Even with wave after wave crashing over your little head out there and more waves all around you can still only deal with what's right in your face. My cat has been my little life preserver, and I have gained rather than lost weight. I sure went through a lot of macaroni & cheese and boxes of Lucky Charms. I have also eaten tons of veggies with the mac & cheese. I thought I was making progress when I was able to stand at the stove and make my own baked mac & cheese rather than buying it prepared. But as soon as I cope with one wave, another has come to crash over my head. Over time it has gotten better and I think I am going to survive. I think you will too.

Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate hearing about your experience. I think that probably, like you, I will later get rid of things that I can't part with now. There have even parts of this process that I had people pushing me and I tried to hustle along, but most of the time I have proceeded at a pace that seemed right and doable for me. I felt afraid of my sisters' criticism in the beginning, because they thought I should be hustling along. At the time it seemed like feeling guilty, but eventually I realized it was fear of them trying some retaliatory action. But over time I felt angry about these sisters that did not care about him when he was alive and do not seem to care much about me now. There is only concern and interest related to his money. Over time, they managed to hear my message to them that I had been told from multiple sources - had I followed their advice years ago and pushed him into assisted living, everything he had would have been long gone and there would not be anything left to squabble over now. And so I have done as I felt best. When he was alive, I helped him keep the best quality of life that was possible by helping him to remain living at home. Now I am going through his possessions at a rate that I am able. In a way, having had the car accident and head injury may have been helpful in a way because it forced me to slow me down. I regret any rushing I have done, but don't regret taking the time it has taken. My family on both sides included people who saved a lot of stuff from generation to generation. Some of it is valuable by now, some is interesting, some is very sentimental and some is none of those things. Determining the difference is only part of paying respect to my family. Taking possession of all of it is awesome, as a responsibility and an honor. My father, my mother, their parents, and others have cared for and treasured these items for all these years. It's kind of amazing that they are now at my house. I used to have furniture from the Goodwill and Target, and now I have a Persian rug, antiques and furnishings that my parents carefully and thoughtfully acquired over decades. It's hard to not know more about why people kept this or that, and I sometimes wish I had been able to ask him these questions when he was alive. But then I know him well enough to realize that he wouldn't have answered and maybe even couldn't provide meaningful answers to my questions. And he certainly didn't want me pawing through his stuff when he was alive. It is what it is...

Yeah, it really was something special, and a gift I never would have anticipated receiving in my life. Nor he! I don't think he ever would have anticipated having a daughter so devoted in the last decade of his life, helping him to preserve as much as possible in every way in his decline. It's what I would want in his position. I hope I am as fortunate. So, it will have been a year this Saturday since my dad died. It has been a really difficult year and right now is a difficult time. I am still combing through my dad's possessions and it's still a mystery and a treasure hunt. On the one hand I think it's taken me a long time to sort through things, but then again I think it honors him to take time to carefully sort through the things that he valued enough to hold onto and to haul across the country. I may never know why many of these items were important to him, but I am learning things about him I never knew as I sift through his possessions. I arranged to get a storage unit today. I was starting to feel like I was in free fall trying to figure out how to dispose of what is left in my father's house before it closes in a month or so. My friend Greg was helping me today and we looked at a pile of boxes filled with papers/letters/ old mail. I commented that those boxes were probably 98% stuff that should be shredded or go into recycling. I have found some amazing things in boxes that were almost entirely trash. To me, it's worth the time and trouble.

Sometimes I think there is just no answer to this and you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, if only to see if maybe something good comes along. The only thing to do is the best you can at each moment. You have really been going through it, trying to keep a business together in the landscape of devastating loss and stress. We feel for you...

Yeah, time is a weird thing. My dad was out here with me for ten years and I've been without him for almost exactly a year now. The year seems longer than the ten years most of the time, but sometimes the last year seems like a blip compared to the ten years, which seem like an entire little world. He missed my mother terribly and we both knew whatever time he was out here with me would be the final phase of his life, but we both made the best of what it was every day. Spending time with him alone outside of the craziness that was sometimes our early family life enabled me to make sense of things and to put a positive - and very different - spin on my younger years and even the years before I was born. Saying goodbye to him a year ago was like saying goodbye to all of that, since now the entire older generations that populated my childhood and youth are now gone. Losing my dad has been so hard. I've lost by best friend and significant other of the last ten years as well as my father. He was the guy I adored as a child, the guy I struggled with but who stood by me anyway as a young person, and the role model I followed to develop my career in the mid part of my life. He was my biggest fan and the person who always wanted to hear everything I had to say about everything. I remember him telling me when I was a teenager, "No one will ever love you more than your parents do". Hard to tell what was really happening inside my egocentric mother, but that was definitely true for him. It's such a loss and hard to believe it's over. Well, maybe it's not all over - just the part where we both walk the earth together is over. Going through his gloves and putting them on really hit me hard. It's like filling his shoes, but filling his gloves is so much more apt and powerful since he was so capable with his hands - playing music, building and fixing everything under the sun, writing for a living, and doing all of the things one does in life. I have his build, even without the gloves my hands look like his, I am so much like him in the ways I think and pursue things. Coaxing him out to AZ after my mother died was the best thing I ever did, and the only reason I got to know him. People used to see us together everywhere and I thought people idealized our relationship as more than it was, for their own personal reasons. But I think they were seeing more clearly than I because I was too caught up in things to have a good perspective. I sure miss him, and it still seems hard to believe how I will will keep on without him.