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.