This morning was the first morning I woke up without a living father on the planet. It was the obvious next chapter and yet seems incomprehensible... how could this be??
I know I have not been blogging in a while, and was not even sure if I was going to come back here, somehow this felt done... I was being called in new directions, but I felt the need to close his chapter on this as I have written about it here before... a few times.
I have made my peace with my father's inevitable passing... a number of times. I have said goodbye to him... a number of times, but this is where the real rubber hits the road. This one is real. This is not just knowing what will come, or even hoping for what will come... this is having it head on. Your father is gone. You will never see him again. I know it happens. I know no one gets out alive, and yet I still feel somewhat surprised...
He went into hospice care a little over two weeks ago. I was able to see him on the 22nd, and spent a couple of hours with him. He was aware of part of the visit, thank God... maybe more, but I was able to elicit two more weak laughs out of him, and even a word. He held my hand and I held his... and I held his stare for as long as he wished. I told him I knew his eyes were talking up a storm, but I was not quite sure what they were saying... maybe just saying he was still there... for a bit. For a little bit, my father was still there...
And now he's not.
Fathers are interesting creatures... larger than life... and yet so very, very human. I bless the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with being human.
No, this is not a post... but just a place to post a song I had forgotten about... that reminds me why I love a certain place... even if it's not on an ocean.
Have a good weekend! I may or may not be back on Monday... depending on the schedule... and the blogging waters... They seem different these days.
We stayed in a number of different places while on the road. Some were chosen in advance... some were merely chosen by where we wanted to go that day or when we wanted to stop. One thing did not change... when we got there, Grizzled let me decide which side of the bed I was sleeping on.
Grizzled and I have been sharing beds for over 2 decades now. He said he used to think I always chose the same side, no matter the room, but he soon learned that was wrong. He then said he thought it was the side farthest away from the door, but that wasn't right either. He then realized it was safest to just let me pick... my picking being done the minute I walk in. I sense the side I want and plop my stuff down. I have been known to switch sides during a visit though if the room doesn't feel right, even though I know switching sides won't necessarily help. Sometimes the bed is just off.
We stayed in one of these rooms while on the road. It did not feel good to me and neither did the bed. I woke up in the middle of the night, certain something was in front of me. I could feel it. If I opened my eyes, I'd see it and I didn't want to. I also knew I had a chair next to my side of the bed and had put a bunch of my stuff in it so that was probably it. I opened my eyes and sure enough, saw a large, dark mass. I reached out, felt one of my bags and then something else that didn't feel familiar. I jumped and made some panicked noise. I snatched my hand back in as fast as I could, pulled up the covers even though it was hot, and inched over to Grizzled's side... slowly enough that he wouldn't realize he only had 5 inches on which to sleep... and then I waited... it was a long night.
I'm not afraid of a lot, but my senses/imagination can have their way with me in the dark. Maybe it was too many horror movies as a kid... one too many scary novels, or camping out with friends and trying to scare the bejesus out of each other... or my brothers, who liked to torment like only brothers can... I like to be scared, but when I choose. I don't like to be afraid at night, which is why I'm glad I don't have to sleep alone... even when I was alone, I still had a dog.
I remember when I was much younger and my grandmother was still alive and living by herself, I would ask her if she was afraid at night, wasn't she tempted to sleep with a light on... somewhere?? (She had a creepy basement with dirt walls... and a scary attic... those two places would immediately pop into my mind if I was staying overnight at her otherwise wonderful house....) She said she grew up with no electricity so darkness did not bother her. She also had the Lord to look over her... Well, Grandma's Lord gave me a wicked imagination that likes to mess with me... so again, I am glad I don't have to sleep alone. I am also glad I have someone who can sleep anywhere... and doesn't mind that I need to pick my side of the bed... or who doesn't mind when I leave him only 5 inches to sleep on because I am sure that something out of Grandma's basement is sitting next to my side.
The sinister wooly bison still haunts me... and it was in our hotel room that night... I know it.
I was going to link to a project my sister has been working on, but life got in the way... so better late than never... here is another layer of my sister... also known as Statnerd. As you may recall, she was working on computer programs to control yarn pooling. Yarn pooling being that pesky thing that happens when you use variegated yarn and end up with blobs of color at random and inopportune times. She felt there would be a way to control the color dispersal by controlling the number of stitches, etc. She was correct.
Although a research psychologist by day, she's an obsessed knitter by night... and every other moment when she has a chance. She taught at Sock Summit this summer, and her pooling discoveries have been getting known far and wide. The latest is here. Click on it. CLICK ON IT!!!
ZRM- I know you'll be tempted to NOT click on the links, as you're probably not an obsessed knitter, but you really should... the yarn she used has you written all over it.Make sure you scroll down far enough to feel the luv.
Confession: When I tell people my sister knits, and they respond with an "Oh! How sweet!"... or they sum her up as only having that going... or that somehow that makes her simple, or that somehow she could not possibly knit because she's not that type, I want to slug them... No, I want to say... "You don't understand... this is EXTREME KNITTING!And what do you mean by not that type?? Who wrote the list of what that type contains?? Hmmm??"
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