Archive: November 18, 2010
I spent a lot of today grieving my father in various ways. It actually caught me off guard though I don’t know why. I was hearing the Voice tell me that I needed to remember the promises I had about my father after he died. The little things that meant so much to me. That it was important for me to recount my understanding of his death. I pushed it down but luckily it didn’t let me.
Today I met with my friend Erica for breakfast and at some point we began discussing our parents. My father has been gone almost 5 years I think and her mother passed away 7 years ago. As I began to talk about the circumstances around my fathers death (in a public restaurant) I began uncontrollably crying and I have to say it caught me seriously off guard. Not to mention the embarrassment of crying in public, over eggs benedict. I realized that the things I needed to process through about my dad were actually A NEED (I’ve never had such a need be forced before and unable to be ignored) rather than a suggestion and began talking about him.
Somehow, by the end of the conversation we’d decided I would replace my phone today and get the ball rolling on that. Which was drama in and of itself to be honest. Buying a phone really stresses me out for some reason. With everything else up it all just sort of hung around my head. I felt foggy. I couldn’t think. And as I was talking about it with a friend later and she began to pray for me I realized… I miss my father so much. I miss that he would check my tire pressure for me and make sure my tires weren’t bald. I miss that he was so tender and caring and kind. I miss that he was so understanding and encouraging about music and how he was really by biggest champion in my life. Without his presence I feel a little lost sometimes. I miss my daddy. I miss him throwing me in the air when I was 2 and taking me out to dinner when my mom was out of town. I miss his voice (though I can still hear it) and I miss his lopsided smile that I inherited. I also realized today that I lost the last photo I had of him (taken the last time I saw him) in the process of loosing my phone. That is the only thing about having my phone stolen that makes me sad.
As I went to meet with my friends this evening I saw Diana and Marc (who is 1 year old today) as I walked through the door. One year ago today his mom was going through labor in my bathtub (though he was birthed at Vanderbilt Hospital – just to clear up any confusion) and I was amazed and stunned by his birth and being allowed to be present when he was born. Today he took his first steps by himself and I heard him call his mother “Mama” for the first time. It was all pretty miraculous and amazing and wonderful. I love both of them a lot.
I am thankful today for my friend as well. In very terrible circumstances (one of my friend’s homes was broken into tonight) I got the opportunity to give him a place to stay and listen to him. I have to say that at first I felt a little put out as (for some dumb reason) I had planned an evening of being selfish and feeling sorry for myself and then going to bed. But when he called and it became apparent that he was going to be spending the night because he didn’t feel safe at home I began to realize that I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself anymore and that I hadn’t really wrote any of today’s important events down. So we set up the guest bed for him and I came out to write (I also got super distracted by trying to get my new, fancy phone, with my much less new and much less fancy computer – didn’t really work out for me) and think about the days events.
The sun is rising on today, the last official day of the blogging challenge. I never wrote much about being misnamed… but I do feel like you’ve all been with me in the process of trying to allow myself to be Named again.
I’ll write some more later. I’m not sure I’m done. But – I’ll also be pulling down a ton of blogs soon as they are too personal and the website will probably take a distinct shift away from introspection in a few months. I just have to figure out what that’s going to look like. These notes have meant a lot to me though… and I think may put a few things into place for my life to be altered dramatically.
We shall see how it pans out.
I did not write every day of the challenge (which was the challenge) but I do not count it as failure.
kat