So, this is the first Father’s Day since my Dad died.
My. Dad. Died.
Saying it slowly, it still doesn’t seem real. There are days when I don’t think of him, but there were always days when I didn’t think of him. We never talked much on the phone, I saw him once a week and all holidays, even the hamburger ones. This past Easter is a blur. It was less than a week since my Dad had died. All of us kids visited with Mum on Mother’s Day. I spent Memorial Day with my sister and Mum.
I still am haunted by his image, those last days, that horror of seeing him lying there with his eyes frozen open, no movement and the only sound his uneven breathing. I have lived with the intrusion of this image for weeks. While it is still the predominant image that surfaces, unbidden, it is gradually being supplanted by other images, no less devastating, from those last weeks of his life. Maybe, at some point, the unbidden images will be drawn from other moments in my memory.
I love you, Dad. Miss you terribly.