The Journey has finally started: Missing Dad

My opening blog is the beginning of my journey to share my writings, journals, and thoughts to people who may benefit from what I have experienced in life, and can express in writings....a way of release for me. I hope that anyone who comes into contact with me through my blogs here will walk away with something, and I might have helped in some way, or just given you something to read in a moment of dullness when you were bored. My writings will be over a broad spectrum of subjects, some serious some hilarious. I have seen and experienced much in my lifetime, some things are very sorrowful, some are fall off your chair laughing hilarious. I am here to share them. Whatever I write on, I hope you gain from it what I do in my blogs and thoughts through my writings.

Back to my writings... it's going to be a mixture on here. It can be poetry, to expressing thoughts about something in life, or that I've experienced. It could be spiritual, and something God has laid on my heart to share, or a word He's given me and the insight I have gained from it. It could be a dream I have, or dreams I have for the future. My personality is a welcoming one with many layers to it (only way I can describe me in a brief explanation), and I'd love to hear your thoughts on my writings. Some are deep, dark, funny, romantic, happy, sad, etc., and most will be from my present, but occasionally I might feel I'm supposed to post something from a past writing. It will vary. I hope it benefits you in some way, because writing tremendously helps me. This being my first one, is the beginning of sharing them with you, something I have never done. I've always been private with my writings and poetry through life. My writings are a release for me, a way to process life. I feel to reach beyond myself in them, so this is The Journey I am to begin with you as you read them. This Journey has finally begun....

I spoke to a dear friend who I'd not remained in contact with since High school, Tara who has a blog site on here too. It was shortly I received the news that my dad had committed suicide. She had lost her brother to the tragedy of suicide, and we talked for a long time, through instant messaging. I felt so closed off, I didn't even want to talk on the phone yet to anyone really. I was immersed in grief and inside my shell of it. But that night she reached out, and it was God given that she did. I was grieving a grief that had never claimed my soul. All that I've experienced and seen in life, (and you'll see what some of those are in my writings at a later date), I had never experienced the grief, shock, or despair I felt when I found out my Father had shot himself, and was gone.

It was February 11Th, 2009 at almost noon, that I received the news my Father had been found dead in his home. After that I don't remember much except falling to the floor, screaming, crying, vomiting over however much time had past. My daddy, was gone. This couldn't be really happening. How am I going to be the "rock", (the oldest child of two), who is always the one who is there in moments in life for my family. I'm the one who keeps everything moving and is there for everyone, even if it affects me in the circumstance. How am I going to be that now...I just kept thinking, Lord you say you will give me no more than I can handle, but I can't do this! I'm not this strong. I want to break. I can't... then I began to think of how I was going to tell my children. They were very close to my father and spent Summers at his home in Florida. We had just lost my Grandmother who we were all close to in June, only nine months previous, and we were still mourning her. I had no answers. I had someone get the children out of school, and bring them to me. With my Mother sitting there I told my children that their beloved Grandpa was gone, and they wanted immediately to know what happened. I told them. Each of there reactions are forever embedded in my head. My oldest, a senior sobbed in my arms just saying over and over again "I just talked to him the other day, he said he'd see me when I walked for graduation Mommy, he promised to be there...He promised." My middle child and son, age 12, when I looked at him was a stone mask of not knowing what to do. Thank goodness God gave me the insight to read what he was thinking, and the words to say. I said, son, you do not have to be "the young man of the house" right now as you feel you do sometimes. It is a time for you to fully just be a grandson who just lost his Grandpa to something awful. He immediately started to sob and walk towards me from across the room where he had sat himself, and tell me that " I wanted to be the little man, and be strong for you and the girls Mommy". Thank you Lord for your insight on that one, so he could start his grieving. My youngest Katie, age 11, immediately had fallen into my arms almost dead away fainting when I told her with only four words barely being uttered when I caught her when she had collapsed. She simply said, "I can't do this", as I caught her.

It's been just over two months since my Father has passed, and some days are just as fresh in my grieving. I have dealt with a lot of guilt through my grieving. I was the last to talk to my Father, and it was a serious conversation on life, but needed to be discussed. I remember sitting at work at the Firehouse that night talking to him on the phone, knowing how down he sounded so down, and saying before I hung up, Daddy I know your very down, but please don't give up. I'll be here for you, and we'll find some answers together for you and with your life and what's going on. I love you, and I'll call you tomorrow. He said, "okay Sweetpea (my nickname he's always called me), I'm just really sad, I love you too, and hung up. I knew he sounded very depressed and I worried about it. I was the last person to talk to my Father. I thought about calling back late that night, but finally decided I didn't want to wake him and would call the next day, as I told him I would. That was the last time I spoke to my Father...

NOTHING prepares you for losing a parent, non less one through the circumstance of having them take their own life, nothing... it is God who gets me still through everyday. I'm still very much lost in grieving some days, as are my family. I have experienced tremendous stages of guilt for not calling back that night. I've woke up in cold sweat nightmares screaming for my Dad not to pull the trigger, and I couldn't get to the gun in time. Feelings that I didn't make him pull the trigger, but felt like I somehow handed him the gun because of our previous conversation the night before, and not calling that night when my intuition told me I should. Leaning on my Savior is the only way I have worked through and processed where I am right now. I know I am not responsible for my Father's actions that night. The enemy had me buried in that guilt to where it had started to claim me, and shut my body down. I couldn't sleep because I was scared I'd have another nightmare. God delivered me of that about a month after my Father died at a healing revival at church. I felt my body shutting down, and felt like I was going to have a heart attack my burden and guilt were so deep. That, with no sleeping was setting me up for failure. I didn't tell even my closest of friends how bad things were getting, I just continued to hide it. When someone asked how I was, I replied, "I'm fine". My friends have been wonderful, but it is Christ who has been my rock through this and my constant one. I thank God, that he delivered me from that, and took that from me when I laid it at his altar. I'll never forget that night or the people who prayed over me, and knew the enemy had me convinced that his death was my fault. I'd not hardly spoken about that until now. I remember sitting there with my kids seeing my health slip from me over that month, and not being able to hardly get through work and daily routine. I remember praying and screaming out to God that I felt like I handed my father the gun that night, and that this was all my fault. If I'd just waited to call, or called back it might not have happened. I remember saying I couldn't deal with not knowing if he was crying alone in his bed, feeling somehow no one cared, when we loved him so much! I don't even remember all I said and prayed...I remember just praying, crying, and at some points forgetting to breathe trying to get out to God what I felt, even though He already knew me and my heart. Then I told the Him, that I wasn't going to let this Spirit of guilt and death claim me, that I am His child, and what the enemy had set at my door I wanted him to take from me. "I choose LIFE and to proclaim the works of the Lord." I kept saying that until I knew it to be true. I prayed off things that night and laid them at His altar for Him to keep. My children were prayed over that night and healed of the spirit of trauma, as well as I. We went home that night and in the first night in a month, we all slept peacefully. For the first time since his death, I had felt a peace to start to grieve.

I still have my moments of recalling that last time I talked to my Dad and regrets, but nothing like I was released of that night. I still feel guilt, and still have bad dreams, but nothing like they were before. There isn't a day that goes by that something doesn't trigger a memory or thought of my dad. Whether it's something from the past, present, or thinking about my future. I have good memories of being a Daddy's girl growing up. I see things or hear things that remind me of him. I think about future things, like when my best friend Lexi got married and she got to have her Father/Daughter dance, I broke down and had to leave the room. I'll never have that w/ my Dad. I'll never have him to walk me down the isle for my wedding when it's time for me to marry the love of my life.

I also find that people who put a time stamp on how long a person should grieve is a great error on their part. People have said, "all you can do is move on"...who can put a limit to how long a person mourns a loved one?! Or if someone is annoyed that you still have a bad day w/ the loss you've experienced. They are either ignorant due to just not being able to be considerate to other people grieving at different levels and paces, or just have no clue because they've not experienced something similar. I think the grief may lesson over time, but I don't feel it will ever be truly gone. I will miss him greatly at the big moments in life like waves hitting me. My children graduating, grand babies being born, weddings... then the normal times too which are daily right now.

A verse I have held tight to since his death:

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.~ Psalm 73:26 NIV

God will see me through this, and I will lean on Him with all that I have. I miss my father so much it's indescribable. BUT right now my Father doesn't miss me, and that can be hard in itself to take in. He is with Jesus. His eyes are set upon our Lord and Savior, and all His glory. Things I read about and try to envision that I'll see when my time on earth is done, and I stand before my Heavenly Father, my Dad is experiencing first hand! I reflected on that this Easter, and it was the first time I'd been out to Dad's grave since the funeral. I reflected what it was like that day for my Dad. As we celebrated the risen Lord here, what that day was like in Heaven for my Dad. It must have been a glorious day for Him there.

I'll write more later.