Way back when I started writing here, I was a 30-ish year old mommy of two little girls living in Denver, Colorado. My husband worked long hours as men 'climbing the corporate ladder' at that age tend to do, and I had gotten a little lost in 'just' being a mom. I took this up as a hobby, as I'd always enjoyed writing and thought that keeping a 'blog' would be a fun, modern take on the baby book. I wrote about our day to day life, the silly and the fun, the challenging and the mundane, and I did even share a recipe or two. The Salad Days continued on like that for many years, and I enjoyed the back and forth interactions I'd have with those who read what I'd written. Sometimes I'd write more frequently than others, but generally there as a consistent nature to my musings. 

Then, in October of 2016, everything changed. By then, we'd been back in North Carolina for four years and had added not just a third daughter but also a son to our bunch. Life with four children under age eight was busy, hectic, crazy, and so, so sweet. On an ordinary afternoon, which I described in detail here, I received the news that my dad had unexpectedly passed away, and the following years' writings revolved around that loss and how navigating grief while continuing on with life was impacting me. Between November of 2016 and October of 2018, I'd go on to write about my dad, his passing, and my grief walk a total of four times. Each entry was titled with a lyric from the Allman Brothers song Melissa for which I had been named. For me, this writing was healing, and I'd hoped reading it would be helpful for others, too. 

Five months after I last wrote about my dad, in March of 2019, we lost my mother in law after a hard-fought battle with cancer. It was this additional loss that opened my eyes to the way grief impacts each of us differently: my husband's grief journey did not resemble mine. He, too, had good days and bad, and as I had found writing to be one of my coping mechanisms, he found his own ways to cope (and became quite a talented banjo builder in the process). He rode the grief waves at his pace, and we all continue to be affected by the great hole her matriarchal role in our family has left. The passing of their grandmother was the first significant loss our children experienced as far as the death of someone who was a key person in their lives. Walking with them through the experience was a journey all its own and was, unfortunately, a precursor to more loss that was to come. 

A mother and her baby boy.

Just as Melissa had become a soundtrack to the untangling of the life and death of my dad, music has played in key role in the three year the grief journey that began on Christmas Eve 2020, when my dear Holly, the closest thing I'll ever have to a sister, closed her eyes on earth and opened them in the presence of God. The timing of her passing, of course, inspired the title of this writing. The complete line being: "A long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last." And the truth is, every December since she left us, it's as if that Counting Crows song sets up residence in my subconscious, and streams constantly throughout all I do. Through the hustle and bustle, the shopping and wrapping, the baking and decorating,  I do wonder, will this year be better than the last? 

I also wonder, will this be the year that I do THIS - that I write about her and about my grieving; that I do the only thing I know to do to salve my pain. Interestingly, I was honored to be asked by her family to give the eulogy at Holly's funeral. So, in the days that immediately followed her passing, I sat alone at a table at Reid's Fine Foods and sipped iced tea or wine, depending on the day, and wrote all about her. I wrote of our meeting in seventh grade, our high school friendship, our college years, and us being real grown ups together. I described what she was like as a mom, a wife, a nurse, a daughter, a friend, and a child of God. I think that writing those words and sharing them that day was just enough of a band-aid for me to be able to put off this,  yet as Christmas Eve draws closer each year, I feel the tug. 

College days, around 1999.

Losing Holly was nothing like losing my dad. His death was sudden and unexpected, and our relationship had been complex, disjointed. In dealing with his loss, there was a huge degree of unraveling the complexity of what was and what as not. A great deal of the grieving process involved yearning for something that really never existed,  but there was little change to my day to day. Holly, conversely, had been sick off and on for many years. In fact way back in 2013 I wrote about the unexpected joy I received from the extra time I got to spend with her babies while she went to cancer treatments. After several years of her cancer being in remission, she found out in April 2016 that the disease had metastasized. I was in the hospital having just given birth to Baby Hatch, and being the dear soul she was, she waited until I was home and surrounded by family to share the awful news. 

Aunt Lala holding Baby Hatch.

Completely unaware she was 24 hours away from learning her cancer was back.

In the years that Holly was sick, I often found myself struggling with anticipatory grief. I knew, barring a miracle - and my goodness did she ever believe with her whole heart that a miracle for complete healing was possible! - what was coming. At times, my mind would get the best of me during visits with her.  What should have been happy times were overshadowed by the undercurrent of my conscious recognition of what the terminal diagnosis meant. I found myself imagining what life would be like without her. She was my person - the one who knew the good, bad, and ugly and loved me just the same. Always the first person I'd call - whether for happy news or sad, and I just couldn't even imagine what life would be like without her. 

The time from the metastasis till that fateful Christmas Eve was four and a half years, Those years were full of beautiful times and awful times; good news and devastating reports; strong days and weak days; peace and calm and "hornet in the chest" anxiety. Throughout it all, there was an undeniable, impenetrable faith that was an inspiration to not just me, and not just her loved ones, but quite literally anyone whose path she crossed. One thing is for sure: in facing death, Holly showed each of us how to live. 

My writing here is not intended to be another eulogy, but rather the sharing of my grief journey. The older I get the more and more I recognize that we are human beings whose lives are often molded by loss. If we are fortune enough to love deeply, then we will know the experience of also losing deeply. In the weeks after Holly passed, I read a copy of a book that she had not only read and recommended but had also jotted notes in - When Breath Becomes Air. In reading it, it felt as if she were speaking directly to me as I read her thoughts in her own handwriting on being face to face with her own mortality. More recently, I've found comfort in Anderson Cooper's podcast on the topic of grief. More than once it's felt as if the interviewee was speaking directly to me whether in relation to the loss of my dad or the loss of Holly. 

The truth is, I miss Holly every single day. I think of her constantly, and wish I could "do-over" some of those visits where I was too in my head to really experience them in their fullest. My children all adored their "Aunt Lala", and she and Murphy especially shared a special bond. I've done my best to walk Murphy though her own grief, and just this week, she and I had a meaningful conversation about how our holiday seasons will forever have an undercurrent of sadness, no matter how blessed and thankful we are or how joyful the season is. 

As an only child, having an "Aunt Lala" for my babes meant the world to me.

On my last visit to the mountains as I drove up the winding road to their farmhouse, I was so acutely aware of the gravity of the visit, of what it meant, of what would be and what would never be again. As time and time again has been apart of my grief experiences, I found myself reaching for music. I intentionally played The Power of Two by the Indigo Girls. She and I had danced to this song at my wedding - somewhere that video exists and maybe one day I'll be ready to watch it. But on that drive, it was jarring to recognize how apropos the lyrics fit the mood... 

"...if we ever leave a legacy, it's that we loved each other well... Now we're talking about a difficult thing, and our eyes are getting wet, Cause I took us for better and I took us for worse, don't you ever forget it."

Always there to carry me - literally this time.

I listened to that song over and over on my drive there and on my drive home. I let the tears fall, and I knew that things would never be the same. Because of Holly, I cherish every day, every moment. I recognize it is a real gift simply wake up each day and take a breath, and to, by the grace of God, watch my children grow up and even one day have grandchildren of my own. 

About a year ago, I was at a doctor's appointment. The physician I was seeing had worked with Holly during her years as a nurse. When I told him about her passing, he paused for a moment and said, "One thing is for sure, this world is not a better place without her in it."  I found his words not only to be 100% true when related to our Holly but also the epitome of how we should all strive to be remembered. May those same sentiments be said about us when our days are through. I never set out to be.a grief writer, but somehow the words of my heart have morphed from tales of toddler antics and breastfeeding woes and second graders with potty mouths to trying to wrap my brain around the collective experience of deep love and how it transfers to deep grief.

It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last. 

I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass.

Freight Train, Each Car Looks the Same

I decided to spend some time writing this morning, cold brew and comfy chair, an hour before anybody would need to be dropped off or picked up or cleaned or fed, yet not even sure what I was going to write about. I typed in the web address, and up popped The Salad Days, open to its most recent entry which is now nearly a year old. Without even thinking, I gave it a read. And then I read the one before it, and the one before that, and the one before that. Each of them have a common theme, titles from the same Allman Brothers song, and reading them today is as fresh and heart-gripping as they were on the days that I wrote them. In fact, the most recent one, written in October of last year, is filled with words that I could have just as easily written today...
"I am not the person I was before... Writing, the thing which has always been my solace, my comfort, my therapy, has been halted... When my mind goes to the dark places, the imaginations, it's almost more than I can physically bare...  I don't know why losing my father hasn't brought me some sort of enlightenment, to a deeper spiritual level..." 
Each of these statements continues to be a struggle for me, and rereading them made me acutely aware of how little progression or growth or 'moving on' I've done on this grief journey. Sure, I'm no longer breaking down in tears in the middle of breakfast, but inside, deep in the inner most parts of who I am, I am still very much entangled in the snares of grief. It still sneaks up on me when I least expect it and reveals itself in surprising ways. It feels strange to almost be personifying the grief and giving it so much power, but it very much does feel like an entity all its own. 
Nothing depicts the power of this grief better than the way I am now affected by music. This was another idea I'd identified back in that last post, "I know that I feel music in a way that I never did before..." yet it continues to shock me when it happens. Several times this past year, I've been stopped in my tracks as I've felt the power music grip me from deep within. Back in the spring at a music festival, while waiting in line for ice-cream, I had tears pouring down my cheeks. I didn't even realize it was happening until my daughter asked why I was crying; I had no real answer. The instrumental music, the crowd, the sounds, the scene, something about it all just overtook me. 
Over the summer, Lindsay and I made plans to celebrate my fortieth birthday - even that felt odd: here I was planning to celebrate my 40th year of life, and half of the one who gave me life is no longer living. 

Him before me.

There was no me before him. 

We traveled to Colorado with the best of friends to see the Avett Brothers at Red Rocks- so many bucket list worthy items in just that one sentence! There, in that setting, the epitome of the beauty of God's creation all around, music acoustics in their most pure form, and the soul stirring lyrics of No Hard Feelings, my chest tightened and the tears fell without warning. 

And, then, just this past weekend, sitting in a movie theater to see something with a rating above PG for the first time in months, I was rocked to my core while watching A Star is Born. I could easily side-bar here and turn this into a movie review of one of the best movies I've seen since I can't remember when, but it was so much more than watching a movie for me. 

From the themes of the story to the music throughout, my mind was swirling with thoughts of him, of the last two years. Specifically the Bradley Cooper song Maybe It's Time immediately resonated with me, and has echoed with me since. 

When I struck the first key on the laptop this morning, I did not anticipate this post going in this direction. I couldn't have imagined there was anything else left to say about it all, not to mention the fact that I'm running out of Melissa lyrics for my titles, ha! I miss writing about nothing, about all the little nothings that add up to the something that is this life. I want to get back to writing about the kids and the day to day. I want to muse on about my unhealthy celebrity obsession and my even more unhealthy food choices. I even want to write about the other struggles and disappointments and challenges that life thrown at us in the past two years because, Lord knows, the world has certainly not stopped turning on my behalf. 

I heard it said recently, that when you grow up with a deep spiritual foundation and something comes along and rocks that, you can feel as if you are free-falling, as if the bottom has been ripped from beneath you. Boy, can I relate. 

Again the Morning's Come, Again He's on the Run

For the fourth time in the last year, I've used a lyric from Melissa by the Allman Brothers as the title of my writing. And, for the fourth time in the last year, I'm sitting down to write about the man who named me for the song's title. In fact, these four writings have been the only times I have written anything in this past year. Writing, the thing which has always been my solace, my comfort, my therapy, has been halted by a great wall. A wall named grief.
When deep grief entered into my life almost a year ago, I had no idea how long its presence would remain or how it would change me. I am not the person I was before. Period. If I had been asked just weeks before I received the news of my father's death, how I thought his death would have affected me, I don't know what I would have said, but whatever I would have guessed would have surely been wrong.
I have always hated it when people lose someone they love and then spend years focusing on the single day that that person left the world rather than the years they shared with that person. To me, focusing on a single day of sorrow and ignoring an entire life worth of memories and joy is an insult to the life of the loved one. But, now, this. Because of our complicated relationship, so much of the grieving process has been piecing together his life in the months leading up to his death. I am haunted both by what I know and what I don't know.
I know that August 22 of last year, he drove to downtown Greenville where he received the news that the excruciating pain in his back was not just from a work injury, but due to metastasized bone cancer. It had started in his lungs, who knows when, and was now permeating the bones in back and ribs. On that exact same day, I, too, was in downtown Greenville, a city I had never before even driven through. But, there I was, just a couple of miles from the doctor's office where he was, at a children's museum with my babies, smiling, laughing, loving.
This fact, this physical proximity that, of course, I had no way of knowing, has haunted me. So close, but so, so far. Why wasn't I sitting with him in that doctor's office, holding his hand, loving him? What exactly did the doctor tell him? How did he respond? Why did he leave that appointment and not share the news with a single soul?

Here he is at my hospital bedside, summer of 1987.

I know that on his coffee table, I found a little paper calendar that he had used to count off the days by marking an 'x' on the dates as they passed. And, I know, that a date came when there were no more 'x's. And, then, I don't know. I don't know what the next days looked like for him, and when my mind goes to the dark places, the imaginations, it's almost more than I can physically bare.
I know that on October 26, 2016, I received the phone call that changed me. I know that I was a wreck when I called and frantcially blurted the news out to my aunt, his only sister, moments later, and, that too haunts me.
I don't know why losing my father hasn't brought me some sort of enlightenment, to a deeper spiritual level, to a sense of peace, but none of those things have come from this grief. I know that I feel music in a way that I never did before. I like to think that as his spirt floated away (another Melissa reference) that maybe he left a little of himself behind in me. I wish that I wasn't putting this much focus on his death and certainly don't want to discount his 62 years of life. I'm just walking this road the best way I know how, crying when I need to and smiling and laughing as much as I can.

Bearing sorrow, Having fun - Gregg Allman

Gypsy, Roll On

Often times I've thought about the idea of there being a last time. Someday there'll be a last time for almost every human experience: the last time I pick up and carry my children, the last time I push each of them on a swing or down a slide, the the last time I make a preschool drop off, the last time to write a school paper or take an exam. Then, there are even more somber last times to consider: there will be a last time that I kiss my husband's lips and a last time that I hug my Mama tight; a last time that I see dear friends and a final time to visit the mountains or the ocean. In realizing this phenomena, I have written about what it was like to nurse my babies for the final time, knowing that I'd want to reflect back on that experience.

Most of these last times come and go without us even realizing it, and it's often later that we really even recognize the significance. Yesterday though, I had a last time experience and was so very aware, painfully aware, really. For the last time of many times over the past nine months, I headed out for the two hour drive south down I85.

West Pelzer, South Carolina

I was returning to this small South Cackalacky (as my dad most often called it) town to complete another step in closing out his estate. That sounds so cold, doesn't it? his estate, but I've learned that an estate it is in fact considered - no matter how large or small. Most of my visit was spent in the office of an attorney, who, irrelevantly, was about 700 years old and used an actual TYPEWRITER during my appointment, I couldn't however come to West Pelzer for the last time and not stop by the little white house that has served as the meeting place for my dad and me. Though he had never been there to greet me.

Within the walls of this old house, I got to know the man who gave me my blue eyes and my long forehead and my metabolism and my migraines. Though I never even saw the inside of this house during his lifetime, while inside I unraveled the details of how he lived and what he loved. Yesterday, I did not go inside but just walked around the yard. After all, it's what he cared about the most.

I looked up above the green tin roof to the perfectly sunny, blue sky. I thought of him. I talked to him. I cried for him. And, of course, our song came to mind.

Sunbeams shining through his hair, appearing not to have a care.

I walked up on to the porch and said goodbye to his three vicious guard dogs. 

And, just as I have done every time after I've turned right from Burkett Street and headed back out of town, I stopped at this convenience store for a potty break in the dingy bathroom in the backroom. This stop, along with every move I made all day, felt surreal and intentional. I knew, God how I knew, that this was the last time, and it was almost as if I was watching myself from a distance.

I was intermittently emotional all afternoon and evening, and then I found something unexpected. The first time I wrote about him I mentioned that I last heard from him on Mother's Day last year, and I thought that was right. But, I was not; he sent me this card after receiving our birth announcement when Hatch was born which I know I sent in early June, after Mother's Day. I vaguely remember reading it before, but I'm going to chalk my hazy memory up to "newborn/oh crap, I have four kids" brain. What a surprising sprinkle of joy to stumble upon this on the evening of the last time.

Oh my God, the words, these final words (in written form to me at least), could they be any more apropos? 

It's that time of year again for fresh new life.

The hummingbirds are doing their part and so are you.

You and Lindsay have made such a beautiful family together.

Michael Thomas Bowman as a precious wee one.

Wright is a chip off the old block of her grandfather.

I love that he observed how much Wright favors him.

When he wrote these positive and encouraging words, he was sick, so very sick, but he didn't know that yet. He was still getting up every morning and putting on his work boots and hard hat and working till the day was done. I am haunted by what I've come to learn of what would be his final months, weeks, and days. Putting those pieces and details together has been mentally excruciating as his daughter.

Back home he'll always run, to sweet Melissa.

[Why didn't he run back home?]

Regardless of our convoluted relationship, I would give ANYTHING for him to have told me that he was sick, for him to have given me the chance to take care of him, to love on him. 

I named you from the first song that Gregg Allman wrote, right?

Gregg Allman's death several weeks ago was jarring for me and having a record of this significance makes me happy. In many ways I've reverted back to a child at times over the past months, clinging on to the innocence of my early years of sitting by the record player and listening to the song that I was sure was written just for me.

Days when this was my Daddy

and nothing was more comforting to me than snuggling my Daddy Dog.

As I am writing about my father this evening, I am wondering if these words are the conclusion of a trilogy. I'm curious whether is the last time, or, rather, just another chapter in a book that is still unfolding. I know that he is the only thing I've been able to write about since he passed. It's as if I need to finish telling his story before I can move on with mine...

Yes, I know that he won't stay, without Melissa.

Crossroads, Seem to Come and Go

In death there are no more maybes, no more next times, no more what ifs. There is no longer the potential for things to change and no more possibility. No. More. HOPE. There's just that one hug that became the last hug. There's the words that become the final words. There are the unsaid words that never will be said. There is now only the last time. The END. And emptiness remains.
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.

Bearing Sorrow, Having Fun.

Yesterday afternoon, the hubby and I headed down I85 South to Greenville, South Carolina and enjoyed a grown up dinner and a Garth Brooks show. As soon as the electric Mr. Brooks took the stage, I found myself cheering, shouting, grinning from ear to ear.  This was actually the second time we had seen Garth together, and I knew that we were in for a good time. What made this concert stand out, though, was that this was the first time I had smiled, laughed, felt real joy in many weeks. And, as my spirits lifted, I was acutely aware that this was the exact reprieve I needed from the grief that has been weighing heavy, so heavy, for the past three weeks.

We've all heard the expressions about 'phone calls you never want to receive', and on Wednesday, October 26, I was the unfortunate recipient of such a call. An afternoon of Halloween shopping with my biggest girl was brought to a screeching halt when I heard the news, "Ma'am, I'm sorry to tell you this, but your father, Michael Bowman, is dead." In that moment, it felt as if I'd been punched hard and swift square in the chest, and that feeling of being punched has replicated itself many times since. 

He's looking up at me so adoringly.

My mom tells me that he was mesmerized with me from the moment he first held me.

Pictures of a dad and his little girl. He took me out for a banana split on the day I got my first report card, bragged on my important role in the class program, and made me pudding when I was home from school sick. All seems so simple and sweet, yet life in the following years got complicated and things changed.

He and my mom split up right after I finished kindergarten. On the day we were packing to leave, Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon and Hard Habit to Break by Chicago were playing on the turntable. Purposeful on his part: he always created a sound track to his life. And, clearly, their significance has stuck with me all these years.
On my 6th birthday, the next month, he took me to get my ears pierced. We chose the ruby red stones - my birthstone. Last week, Lindsay sat with Murphy, who'd just turned six, as she got her ears pierced. Full circle.

And here we are sitting on his beloved Barracuda afterwards.

Over the next several years, our time together became more limited. Christmases. Birthdays. On the occasional weekends I'd spend with him, we'd recored 'interviews' on my tape player and eat junk food and listen to his records. 

Allman Brothers' Eat a Peach.

We'd listen to Melissa over and over. 

Such a talented man.

He built me this doll cradle and matching bunk beds. My girls still play with them today.

I look so happy here.

I so desperately want to talk to that little girl and to her daddy.

A new bicycle for my eighth birthday.

I'm 11 here. 6th grade. (I know by the locket I'm wearing.)

I want to talk to this girl, too. 

Tell her how much this man loves her even if he isn't sure how to show her.

And then, my teen years hit, and I don't know what to say. He drifted. I drifted. We drifted. At the times we saw each other, I could tell we both felt odd, disconnected. Not like total strangers, but also not like father and daughter. And, now looking through adult eyes, I wonder if maybe that just comes with the territory of being a teenager. I'm not sure, but whatever the reason(s), a distance was formed. Through years of little contact, I never doubted his love for me. He always stressed the value of education, and it was important to him that he pay for my college. He was so proud of me for my grades and always told me so. He and a girlfriend (not wanting that to sound like he had lots of girlfriends over the years, he did not. Just this one for a year or so.) visited me at my first college apartment.  When he arrived, I had James Taylor playing. He appreciated my music choice. I'm sure he didn't realize that I'd spent quite awhile searching for just the right music that would make him proud. 

And then, I grew up, like all the way up, and got married and moved to Dallas and moved to Denver and started having babies.

Here he is holding his first grandchild, my Carter Lilly.

His blue eyes, my blue eyes.

When I was a young mom of two little girls, I found him on my mind a lot. I reached out to him. Suggested we start a pen-pal type relationship, get to know each other better. 

This was his first letter to me. 

"No more dysfunction? That will be the greatest gift I've ever received."

It's funny. I remember saying at the time how much easier it would have been if he'd just jump on a computer. Send an email or a Facebook message, but, now, I'm so grateful for his handwritten words and his unique left-handed penmanship.

I am yours, and you are mine. 

I hope your kids are making your life worthwhile - I know mine did.

{Dear God, I hope he meant that. I hope I did give his life some meaning.}

The right music can make your day. Just as the right seasoning can make your meal.

I have never forgotten about you. Never have. Never will.

I wish I could say that this back and forth changed more of the day to day of our relationship, but it did not. I'd mention in my letters opportunities for us to get together, but he didn't 'bite'. I can't say for sure why. I do think that this period allowed us to reconnect and get to know each other in a different way. 

A Mother's Day note.

I'm proud you are mine. I'm happy that they are yours.

Then, again, we drifted. We reconnected a bit when my grandmother hurt her back and moved into assisted living. During a phone call from her hospital room, he thanked me for being there for her. I simply reminded him that family takes care of family.

She died just over a year ago, at her funeral he commented on how my girls were 'little stair steps' and that Wright looked just like me. I last saw him on the day we said our final goodbye to Grandma Margie. As we left lunch, I gave him a big bear hug. I was newly pregnant with Hatch, and I could see a little twinkle in his eye at the news I was having a son. When I got home that afternoon, I said to Lindsay, "I wonder if I'm ever going to see him again?" I never did.

I texted him from the hospital when Hatch was born. He left me a voice text in which his voice was beaming. I sent him a couple more photos over the next couple of weeks. 

A Mother's Day card from this year.

The last time I heard from him.

Do I have regrets? Sure I do. I'd guess there are few people who lose a loved one and don't feel any sense of regret. But, do I know I tried? Yes, I know I tried. Do I wish things had been different? Absolutely. 

"Around 1984 the song 'Ghostbusters' came out. It didn't have any meaning or soul. 

I turned to country and never looked back. It had enough feelings for any mood." 

In the middle of that concert last night, while cheering and smiling and dancing and singing along to Shameless, tears began pouring down my face. It hit me how happy it would make him that I was reclaiming my first moments of joy through music, country music. 

His little corner of the world. West Pelzer, South Carolina.

I never stepped foot in his house until after he had left it. Haunting. There's no other word for me to use to describe the experience. I wonder if he had any idea the gaping hole his death would leave. Sometimes, the moments of grief are almost too much to bear. The repetitive, maddening thoughts swirl incessantly. Breathing in and out becomes difficult, and the simple act of swallowing feels like a giant undertaking. I loved him. Deeply.

I hope that in his memory I was always that adoring little girl.