My Dad died three and a half years ago. I'd like to be able to say its getting easier but I'm not sure that would be true. I still feel guilty, lonely and at times utterly lost. I'm not putting him on a pedastal. He wasn't perfect. He could be difficult, petty and stubborn. At times, he perhaps wasn't even that good a father, but he was mine.
He still appears in my dreams, sometimes I wake up crying, other times I'm happy just to have seen him again, one time recently he turned up in the dream and was being difficult, and I told him that he was behaving ridiculously as he was, afterall, dead.
Father's Day this year has been particularly bad. I'm not sure it has bothered me as much other years as I realise other people still have Father's and have every right to give them cards and gifts, but this year there doesn't seem to have been any escape from it. Every other email I've received in the last week has been from a website suggesting Father's Day presents and I've felt particularly sensitive about it. I was quite close to emailing HMV to tell them that even if he had been alive, he wouldn't have been interested in a brain training game, but as he's dead, he's got even less use for it.
Strangely though when he was alive he was incredibly difficult to buy presents for, but since he's died, at Christmas, around his birthday and Father's Day, I see things in the shops that I think he would like and sometimes I wonder if I was to buy them for him, it might bring him back.
I'd like to be able to write something beautiful in tribute to him, but I don't have the words.
11 comments:
Have a big virtual hug from me xxx
The whole email marketing thing can be very insensitive in that respect - I remember a friend of mine in bits when she was bombarded with emails about ideal mothers day pressies not long after losing her baby.
Have a big virtual hug from me too
This post gave me goosebumps...I often think how much I wouldn't like half of the emails for fathers/mothers day etc, if one of my parents had passed away. X
Thank you all. I felt a bit silly writing it but actually writing something did make me feel a bit better. I also had some tea and toast which helped too.
Reading your post prompted me to spend a little extra time with my Dad yesterday. Thanks.
*sends hugs*
My dad died four days before my thirteenth birthday...he was, quite possibly, the best dad in the world...
I'm fifty four now, and your post has made me realise how much I've missed him most of my life, and just the sort of impact his absence has had...
Thanks
Hey honey.
Many hugs for you. I'm thinking of you sweetie. It's hard missing someone like that, I miss my gran and my mum still. I suppose the difference is as a family we tend to ignore Parents days. But birthdays and Christmas can be tough. For me it's the good bits of news that get me. I find myself reaching for the phone to share...
It's just one of those things.
More hugs.
Hugs. All I seem able to say is thinking of you.
I'm glad that writing the post helped you feel better. x
Thank you all again for your nice messages.
M - glad that my post at least had a positive effect.
Cogi - that must have been have very difficult for you.
Roses - the news thing happens to me, even with trivial stuff, like I know my dad would have loved the outdoor swimming pool.
Hugs to you also, Sandancer.
Don't feel silly at all - your post was touching and poignant.
My father's health has declined quite suddenly in the last six months. He's gone from being very very active to slowing down to a comparitive shuffle.
It's quite worrying and makes me consider what a life without him would be like.
In amongst all the mechandising and commercial overkill I too have stopped and wondered that it's about simply loving your family, not spoiling them.
A very touching post, Sanddancer. I think you have found the words very well to express how much your dad meant (and means) to you.
Lots of hugs to you xx
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