These thoughts flooded over me on a recent Saturday morning as I sat at the table with my daughters. The grief came on so suddenly and yet so severely and settled itself in my throat so tightly that I was barely able to swallow my breakfast. I answered the girls' random questions with a pleasant tone and lightly smiled, but quickly excused myself to a private place to silently sob.
In the months following my father's passing, he is rarely far from my thoughts. He lives in my dreams, and there, his death has been but a cruel joke. In fact, though, it's the waking up that is cruel, and it is in no way a joke. Yet, life still moves on: my world still consists of big girls and little girls and a baby boy and a home and a husband and friends and family. Lunches are packed and carpool is driven. Bills are paid, and visitors come. Dinner is (sometimes) cooked, and future plans are made.
In my world, a world in which my dad scarcely existed, he is now everywhere. His mail is in my mailbox; his clothes in my garage.
The concrete, sneaker wearing turtle that used to sit on his front porch, now sits on mine: a friendly greeter for any visitor.
All the other little concrete animals - bunnies, frogs, dogs - who previously resided in his perfectly manicured flower beds and throughout his bamboo forest now adorn our not so perfectly manicured yard.
On a bookshelf sits this unique set. I'm not even sure what to call it and have no idea where it came from, but I love it. I wish he could tell me about it: how old it is, where he got it, if it meant something to him.
He would have never guessed that my most prized item in our entire home was crafted by his own hands. He had painted it brown and the gold inlays were a bit dusty and looking more dingy than gold, but a fresh paint job (Benjamin Moore, Hale Navy) and a good cleaning has led to a perfect addition to our home.
The piece sat by his front door. The bottom cabinets were measured perfectly (by him) to hold his record collection. He kept the top section closed, and it contained everything from my high school graduation announcement to a letter from an ex-girlfriend to postage stamps. The top, like most every surface in his home, held several shot glasses from his massive collection.
In our home, the top holds special bottles of champagne and champagne glasses we received as wedding gifts. Also? A bud vase holding daffodils picked from his own yard. {His life. Still living.} And those four colored shot glasses? Those were a part of his collection. Their current purpose? Something he would never have imagined.
The glasses hold gems that little Miss Wright earns for trying new foods.
Five gems collected equals a new Barbie for her.
My girls are in awe of all things him. Each time I've gone to his house over the past few months, I've returned with some sort of knickknack for them. Skeleton keys, old coins, maps, books about shells and nature.
These little dogs, a gift from my mom years ago, still sat in his bedroom and now sit in his oldest grandchild's amongst all her childhood trinkets. None of these things has been worth anything, but to my girls they are seen as absolute treasures. "Wow! My grandpa must have been rich!" "Did he live in a castle?" "He is the coolest person I know!" "He could build anything!" "Mommy! Your dad was so talented!"
Their words, those precious, innocent words of a child are both comforting and heart wrenching. The grandpa, who we are all getting to know far better in death than any of us did in life, never seemed to see his own worth. He didn't seem to know what a treasure HE was just by being himself. I imagine he would have never dreamed that his three little grandgirls would be in complete awe at his talent as a carpenter and craftsman.
And then, there's Hatch Hughes, my precious, precious boy: the grandson who he was so excited to have. Upon seeing a picture of Hatch at his birth, pride beamed in his voice as he said, "They just don't get any prettier than that, Melissa!". The grandson he will never meet. No, Hatch will not meet him, but he will know him.
A old ammo box from his living room now holds toys at the end of Hatch's crib.
Acrylic shelves hold some of the models he intricately built.
The girls and I have ooooed and aaahhhed over the wooden ones. Murphy spotted the model car kits at Michael's craft store and said she wished we could have gotten him one for his birthday "when he was here".
It was hard choosing which ones to display.
Memories of my early childhood when my mom and dad were married are few and are not all pleasant, but picturing him sitting at the table in the 'spare room' working for hours on his model cars is a sweet one. And now I wonder, when did he last put together a model car? When did he last create something from wood? When did he last place flower bulbs into the prepared soil? A part of this process has been piecing together a life: not just the ending of a life - though that has been a big part of it - but all of a life.
When cleaning out a drawer in his kitchen, I came across the receipt for the suit that he wore to my wedding: a gray three piece suit and a tie and new shoes all from the Men's Warehouse. He purchased it on March 19, 2006, one week before my wedding day.
I distinctly remember looking out the window from the bridal suite
and seeing him walking up the sidewalk to the chapel.
Here he sat with my Uncle Rocky.
What grabs me about this picture is how healthy he looks.
He walked up behind me after the ceremony and asked, "May I have a kiss from the bride?" He looked at Lindsay and said, "Take care of her," to which my handsome young groom replied, "I intend to."
I imagine on the day that he purchased that suit, somewhere in his mind, he was thinking of making me proud. And as I work through the paperwork and the decisions and the stuff, all I want to do is make him proud. I want to treat his things, the remnants of his life, with respect, with dignity. I want him to know that I value him, his role in my life, and I now understand that that role intimidated and confused him.
After I shared my last post about him, a dear friend wrote to me, "Always tell his story, over and over. Find new ways to tell it, remember the new parts." I didn't understand then that there would be more to tell, but there is. And for me, telling is healing.
His record collection. I hope he'd be proud of its display.
I still can't bear to pick up the Allman Brothers album containing Melissa.
One day, though, I will. And that, too, will be healing.
Not today though.
Not now. Not yet.