One Year

It's hard to believe it's been a year.  I can remember the day vividly. I slept on the floor of the living room where Dad was sleeping.  Paul slept on the floor nearby. Robert fell asleep on the dining room floor and various other family members were scattered throughout the house.  When I woke up Mom and Aunt Dena were still keeping watch on either side of his bed.

Dad woke up sometime around nine or ten and enthusiastically said "Good morning!"  Those would be the last words he would ever utter.

It seemed like his breathing had improved.  It seemed like he had done it once again: overcome all expectations and defied death again. So I went about my day working out, making lunch, visiting with relatives.  Mom stayed close to Dad.

I was in the living room laughing with Paul and Mike about something nonsensical when Mom's panicked voice interrupted us.  She was concerned that Dad had stopped breathing.  I bolted to the kitchen to get Robert who came to check Dad's pulse.  "He's still with us," he said. "But he doesn't have much longer."

We all rushed to Dad's bedside telling him how much we love him, hugging and kissing him and dreading the moment that had now come.

At 1:04 p.m. I received a text.  Thinking of you and your family.

At the same moment Dad exhaled.  Mom knew immediately that it was his last breath. Robert confirmed it.  We hovered around his bedside crying together. A tear rolled down Dad's cheek.

I remember the rest of the day in snapshots of events.  Kissing Dad's face.  All of us sitting on the lawn hoping for a rainbow as they drove him away.  Hundreds of texts, emails, phone calls, Facebook messages.  People bringing food and flowers. My brothers taking turns sitting in Dad's Corvette. Crying.

At one point in the evening I went to the grocery store with Paul.  I don't remember what we were buying but I remember finding it odd that everyone in the world just kept on with their lives as if mine hadn't just changed forever. People buying groceries around us oblivious to what we had just experienced that day.  Unaware that these two strangers in the aisle next to them had just lost their daddy.

We returned home to see everyone in the living room surrounding boxes of photographs. We joined them. Looking at pictures of Dad. He was so handsome.

While we were reminiscing through the pictures April said that all of the children would be speaking at the funeral.  Then she turned to me and said, "You know you'll be singing right?"  I knew.

In the year that has followed, there hasn't been a day that I haven't thought about my sweet daddy.  When I see a sunset or a muscle car;  when I hear the National Anthem or catch myself saying "sounds like a personal problem" to one of my kids. Or when I call Mom and get Dad's voicemail message so I call back again and again.

He was there when I sang at his funeral. He was there when my daughter was born. He was there that day I found myself talking to him in my car. He was there when April and Rhett were sealed.  I know he's been with us all year and he'll continue to watch over us until we are together again.

I can still hear his voice.  I can still feel his hugs.  I can still see his smile.

And I still miss him so much.