Hug Twice

I find myself, almost a month after my father died, using his death as some kind of major time milestone in my life.  I’ll catch myself saying things like “before my father died” or “since my father died” to describe an event in a series of time.

Of course, this is a momumental event in terms of my life.  It is not that I have been immune, thus far, to personal tragedy, but before this, every event had at least one more degree of separation from me than this does.  My 5 year old cousin passing away two years ago shook me to my very core.  But again, it was another degree of separation from my own very nuclear family.  This is somehow decidedly different.

Today would be my parents’ 38th wedding anniversary.  Earlier this week was my seventh.  I found myself looking at wedding pictures, seeing my father in them, and being at the same time, glad he was alive then to see my wedding and the addition of my darling husband to our family, but also, thinking “What if you’d known you had less than 7 years to live right then?  What then?”

I think the time demarcation might last in my life for a long time.  Maybe forever.

I also now find myself wishing time away far too much.  This has to stop.  But I find myself impatiently waiting for 3:30 pm every day, for that is when my mom gets home from work.  I want to, no need to, call her every day and make sure things are okay.  That she’s handling things, or that i can help her, and just, honestly, make sure she’s still there.  I leave for work at 4:15pm, so there is only a little window to do so each day.

In that before time, I talked to my parents on the phone quite often.  Usually 3-4 times a week.  It is not unusual that I talk to my mom every day.  But I know it is my own need to connect and feel “normal” that is driving it, now.

But I do need to stop wishing all the time before it away in my head, and start enjoying the time I spend from morning to afternoon every day as well.  I do enjoy the time, some of it, but I do catch myself clock-watching far too much.  Lucky for me I have kids to snuggle.

Happy anniversary, mom and dad.  Except today it isn’t really very happy.  So what do I call it?

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CJ has had a stuffy nose for the past few days.  He sounds a little funny when he talks, and his nose does run a little bit, but other than that, he has acted completely and totally fine.  It has had another interesting effect on him though…

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“CJ, please put your clothes in the hamper”

“But Mommy, I am too sick!”

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“Mommy, I want to play my Wall-E game.”

“But CJ, aren’t you sick?”

“Not *THAT* sick, Mommy!”

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Heh.

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As CJ approaches the age of 5 (hard to believe it is only 5 months away!) he becomes more and more independent.  Sometimes this makes me feel a little nostalgic and even sad.

But not when he picks up his own toys, takes his own clothes to the laundry, puts his own dishes in the sink, or generally, cleans up after himself.  That just makes me smile.

It is good to be 4.  For the mommy, at least. 

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I came back home last night after being away all week dealing with my father’s death, attending the funeral, helping my mom get all the affairs in order, etc, and I was greeted by a really bright spot of information about CJ.

CJ had gotten his quarterly progress report from school while I was gone.  He has 4 goals for this year as far as communication, and three of them he got “Satisfactory Progress”.  Which is excellent.  But even more excellent is that the remaining goal is now labelled “Mastered”.

Mastered:  CJ will produce 3-5 word utterances including articles, pronouns, aux. verbs, and descriptors.

Report:  CJ’s utterances are age-appropriate including appropriate word order, vocabulary, and grammatical forms.

A very sunny spot in a very dreary week for me.

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My father passed away in his sleep last night.  He was 58.  Heart attack is the likely reason.

My kids called him Poppa.  Well, CJ did.  Alexa wasn’t really saying much, even last Christmas.  I always spelled it Papa, and he always spelled it Poppa.  And really now, it doesn’t make much of a difference at all.

Honestly, I’m heartbroken.  And too shocked to completely feel it.

the one thing I will always, forever remember about my dad is how proud he was of me.  I was his little girl, who in her own mind didn’t always amount to much, but to him, I am a superstar.  He always supported me and thought I could do anything, even when I didn’t.

He loved his son-in-law, and his grandkids, and sharing his spirit with them and me.  He was always the life of the party and fun to be around.  He was the guy everyone knew and everyone remembered. But mostly, he was my dad.

Goodbye, Poppa.  We will all miss you.

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