Time wrinkles

Most of the time, anniversaries don't mean a whole lot to me.  I reflect on the event but not that excessively.  I might or might not feel a little effect on my general mood but nothing that noteworthy.

Quite unexpectedly, I've stumbled onto an exception.  This coming Wednesday, it will be 6 years since my dad passed away.  I find myself reflecting on it very frequently, and a general sadness in my mood.

I find it interesting because this has never really happened for this anniversary before.  I've always noted it, but not even the first year did it really bother me.  I find myself wondering "Why now?"

I casually observed that it was going to fall on the same day of the week when I was mapping out my plans for June this spring.

My dad loved kids.  He would have loved being a grandfather.  He would have been great at it.  My kids would have loved him.  He would have loved how much they love classic cars, fixing things, and trains.  Oh, how he would have loved how much Obsidian loves trains.  I am very much my father's daughter.  In many ways I think and act like he did.  It mystifies my mom at times, it always has.  Obsidian is my son.  My karma if you will.  In the past few months in particular, I can hear my dad laughing in my mind's eye (or ear I guess), at me having to deal with his antics, what goes around comes around.  For the most part, they are things that I could have done.  Jet looks at Obsidian and responds in a manner much as my mother did "I never would have dreamed of doing that as a kid!"  Stunts like spelling his name instead of saying his name when he realized he was being tested, now that is something I would have done.  Jet, Pyrope, my mother, no way.  My dad would have done it too.

The night DB1/SIL called the big family meeting, I thought with a vague sense of irony how we had gathered as a family in the exact same spot on the exact same day 6 years earlier.  Only a little later at night and to celebrate Jet and I putting a bid in on our house (that we won).

A long time family friend posted on Facebook that she was running a 5k in memory of my dad on Saturday, just a few days shy of his anniversary.  

Then came a series of friends on Facebook posting how their dad was not that great, but their mom or grandfather or stepfather was great to them.  I only noticed one friend actually putting something up about her dad.  That seemed to seal my fate in remembering.  Or remembering and being sadden so much.

Things in general have been busy for me lately.  Much as they were that June.  I was the sole financial support for Jet and I at that point.  I was doing a crazy commuting 240 miles one way 3-4 times a week from when my dad first came out of remission the first week of May, until today, the Friday before he died when I moved back in with my parents.  I was the point person for running interference for issues/people that really did not need to be dealt with by my larger immediate family.  I will always remember one particular day in early June, I worked one case, drove 240 miles to go sign papers at a bank and to hand deliver a letter (which I also sent an identical copy by certified mail) written by an attorney to a group of {ehov**'s Witn*** to stay away from my parents home (they kept coming to "comfort" my mom by talking about how in the Bible people lived hundreds of years but we are now so evil we have a shorter lifespan (I fail to see the "comfort" in this), but very much distressing my dad and siblings; my mom saying she couldn't ask them to not come back because that would be impolite... they stayed away for a good 6 months to a year after the letter), I drove back and did another case (so 7 hours of driving total).  As I was sitting on my balcony, trying to escape the sweltering heat of our 2nd floor flat, and eat a very late dinner, and do some paperwork for work, I got a phone call from one of my dad's first cousins (as we were asking all phone calls came through me because of some of the craziness and time restraints my dad had).  She began talking about how if my dad "had enough faith in Jesus Christ he could be healed" and could she please give me some books so I could give them to him so he had a chance to continue living on this Earth.  Are you joking me?  Are you seriously joking me?  She was not.  I said sure, I would pick them up and pass it on when it was appropriate (thinking it was way easier and less stressful on the rest of my family to deal with it in this manner).  At this point, I decided I needed to get a break.  So I went in and check my email.  Sitting in my email, was one of the best gifts I ever got.  I think it always will be.  A dear internet friend of mine had asked the day before about what church my dad went to.  My dad was a traditional Catholic (meaning he doesn't believe in much that happened since the second Vatican Council in the 1960's.  Think Latin Mass and the like).  There were only 2 churches that he went to (as in within 50 miles of where he lived, one only had a Mass in Latin 2 times a month for the most part, the other once a week, with some exceptions).  She had managed to get a mass said for him later that week.  She was initially told that they could not accommodate a traditional mass for him until mid July.  She persisted and got one for that week.  I'm not sure if this was a regularly scheduled Mass or one that was scheduled and said specifically for him (as in it didn't normally happen at all).  This meant a lot to my dad.  A lot.  And to me.  But it was a very large gift for my dad.  The kicker was, she is Jewish.  I immediately called my dad.  He knew I was in town for the bank, and I had promised him no more JHs would be showing up for a while but he didn't know that was what I was doing that particular day.  Nor did he have any idea about his cousin and that phone call.  Knowing that the irony of the situation wouldn't be lost on him I started the conversation with "I know this is going to sound like a bad joke, but this actually happened to me today.  Now if you had 2 Christians and a Jew, who is going to give you the most religious support and comfort?"

I think of how the room my dad was admitted to exactly a week before he passed away wound up being the same room I did my first evaluation of a patient as an employee of the hospital 5 days after he passed away.  It was the luck of the draw.  When my boss saw my face and inquired, she said I could put it back.  I did it because I knew would eventually have to, the longer I would have waited, I think the harder it would have been.  This came up quickly and unexpectedly, so I didn't have a chance to ponder it before hand.  Still, this weekend when I work, I'll be making sure that is not on my list of rooms I'm seeing people in.

If find myself thinking of how it was the last day of working at my old job.  How cruel they were making the last thing I had to do was open a Hospice case.  Of driving to move back in with my parents for 3 months.  Of that dinner, less than 2 hours after I officially "moved back home" that my dad announced that he changed his mind that he wanted to pass away at home not in a Hospice center.  An hour or two later privately saying he did not think my mom could handle the minute to minute end of life decisions of medications and care.  But felt that I could.  He was waiting for me.  At 2 am that same day, less than 8 hours after living at home, my dad collapsing on the kitchen floor and not being able to get back up without help.  The downward slide of his health that Saturday but he was still basically functioning but it was clear it would not be for much longer.  Officially getting Hospice services.  Getting his plan in place with him.  Listening to him say he didn't want be sick for any more than 3 days.  On Sunday, his incessant questioning if he was going to die that day.  That he did not want to die that day.  It was my sister's 18th birthday, and Father's Day.  He didn't want to "ruin" those days.  I kept assuring him, he was close, but not that close.  Monday morning, checking on him but going into start my new job so I could get benefits.  How he kept telling me to go.  I went.  It sucked.  I got benefits.  The descent into Tuesday.  The long night Tuesday night.  Watching my sister, DB2, and DB3 realize that death was close.  Watching my mom, DB1, and my dad's twin not really get how close it was.  On Wednesday, realizing that if he didn't pass soon, I would no longer be able to keep him comfortable at home.  Signing the transfer papers to a facility that could give him that care.  The transport people coming.  Me working on the final papers for him to go, my mom and DB1 in with him and the transport people coming back out and saying he had passed.  The surrealism of it all. 

But it happened.  And we continue to live.  And miss him.  And I try to honor him by keeping his wish that the day that he passed, was not a day for unhappiness in the future. 

I've felt him since then.  The day I was figuring out my due date for Pyrope.  I did it multiple times.  In multiple ways (on line, calendar, and a tool that OBs use).  Each time it was the same.  My due date was the 1 year anniversary of his passing.  How frequently Pyrope gets hiccups (from in utero to this day), my dad was plagued with horrible hiccups from his first surgery on.  Pyrope never minds his.  Obsidian trying to fix things.  Obsidian and all of the different sounds he makes for trains (Something my dad did as well. Can you believe I know if he is pretending to be a large or small or diesel or steam or passenger or freight train that is either going in the country or the city by the type of sound Obsidian makes?)

So I just find myself thinking, and remembering.  And missing him.

This year, weather permitting, the boys and I will be riding alone a bike path, then picking up the train to get back to our car.  Something he would have loved (he rode to work on his bike the Thursday before he passed away and he LOVED trains).  It is the bitter and the sweet.