My Dad Passed Away Last Sunday, March 13, 2011

Hello everyone. I know that I was supposed to blog more often, but as the title of this blog indicates, I have been unable to do so. In my last blog I talked about how he was diagnosed with brain cancer but that he was taking his chemo and radiation treatments. Well last Sunday, he woke up to fix himself something to eat and during that time, he collapsed and had a seizure. My aunt called the EMT's and when the got there, he had gone into cardiac arrest. They tried to stabilize and revive him for 45 minutes, but there was nothing they could do. They called his time of death at 9:23 am. My mom was the one to tell me. She came to my house at around 10:00 am. Lovey answered the door and then he came upstairs and got me. When she told me I wanted to scream. In fact I did. I wanted for someone to tell me that it was a bad joke and that my dad was okay, but I knew that would not happen. His funeral was Friday, March 18, 2011. I decided to have him cremated because I couldn't afford to have him buried. Also my mom and aunt assured me that what was being cremated was a shell of my father, that his spirit had passed on. The service broke my heart even more. He was a veteran, so I received the flag that they normally drape over the casket. When the soldier brought it to me, I broke down. I guess it finally hit me. My father is dead. I will never see him again. So here it is Sunday, March 20, 2011 and it is a week since my dad died. I'm still hurting, but my grandmother said that even though I am hurting, I can't let that hurt take me away from my daughter and my family. That my father would not want me that way. I just wish I had the chance to say good-bye to him and tell him one last time that I loved him. I guess I have the chance to do that everyday now. I have his ashes. They are in an urn on my picture windowsill.
With everything that has happened, now I question my own mortality. My daughter's. My fiance's. Basically everyone in my family. It's not death that scares me. It's the when and the how. I know everyone has to die sometime. I've made my peace with that somehow. But I'm afraid that when I lay my head on my pillow, that it will be the last time I draw breath on this earth. It consumes my thoughts and I just want things to be back to normal. However, normal would mean that my father is still alive. I just want things to make sense again. That's all I want.