the 13th of this month will be 11 years ago my dad passed away, 'unexpectedly'.
unexpectedly in quotes, because this girl, the family flake, knew months before my dad passed that there was not much time left for him with us. a couple of months before he died i hugged him extra tight and breathed in his cologne as deeply as i could. i never told anyone i knew, because how do you tell people that think you are a bit odd, weird, and flakey that their husband/dad is going to die.
my dad died at the age of 59 of an aortic aneurism.
(his ashes are in the heart necklace. i ended up being allergic to the necklace. i cried for days. i felt my dad was rejecting me again and did not want to be that close to me.)
i love my daddy very much.....i miss him very much.
my dad had a rough life growing up, a screwed up life.....something that was passed down like hair or eye color through the generations. it affected our relationship greatly. he and my mom were kids when i was born, just 9 days after my mom's 18th birthday. he was just 20. i was a mistake.
skipping most of the details, my younger sister and i were raised differently. i was the black sheep, flake.....you name it. if it was negative, it was me. spent most of my life on what my parents called 'the shit list'. never made that man proud once. if he was happy with me, i knew it was just a matter of time before i screwed up again and was back on 'the list'. i tried so hard to be what they wanted and expected me to be and i was not true to my self....after all being accepted by others is a desire we all have to a degree, but being accepted by your tribe, your family and loved unconditionally is almost a need.
that is me to the left....
in the months before my dad passed we had some really good conversations, that i treasure....who knows what would have happened had he lived.
i tell you this, so that you know i was not daddy's little girl, we were not really close. in time i learned to understand he was a product of a super crappy childhood. i would like to say i have forgiven him completely....for the most part i have. sometimes i just remember something that still hurts or makes me mad, but.......but......i have changed. i get it. the adult in me is all good, the little girl in me....eh....she is healing. i wish we had another chance......and my dad has worked really hard from the other side to show me he loves me.
i wrote a post, here on my blog, in august of 2013 about how he came to me, and our family in the form of a butterfly. we interacted for a very long time. it was my wedding anniversary. it was the most beautiful experience. i hoped to have another experience someday, but i felt selfish for wishing and asking for it. we took hundreds of photos. one of the photos i use as my home screen on my phone. it was, and still is one of my most precious experiences and gifts i have ever received.
this past august 4th, the day of my wedding anniversary, i asked my dad for another butterfly. later that afternoon i realized i had zero chance of interacting with a butterfly because our house was under an almost 2 month attack from hornets. BUT.....later that day i walked by our finch cage and saw this floating in the water bowl.....
i line the bottom of the finch cage, and change the paper almost daily, with adds from this.....
these are free at local shops, they fit the finch cage perfectly. there are various adds, mostly used car dealers and working ladies advertise here. never once had i seen a butterfly on any of the pages, but floating in the water bowl was a torn piece with a butterfly on it. my finches are very smart...they pull the paper in to their bowl and have learned that when the paper gets wet it tears easily, they then line their nests with the paper and as it dries it conforms to the nest.
i never said out loud i wanted another butterfly. just in my head. i have learned our loved ones who have passed not only hear our words.....they know what we are thinking. i know because it has happened many times.
i receive hearts on a regular basis, and photograph quite a few of them...just so i don't forget just how loved i am from the other side.
my dad plays hide and seek with pennies and hearts. sometimes i sense he is playing a game with me. or, maybe he knows i will always listen to that tiny voice that tells me to look some place weird and do something goofy.
these are just a few of the hearts i was given in the past 10 days or so.....
this past wednesday....the 2nd i believe, i was feeling the kind of menieres attack coming on that is the worst. it is hard not to get worked up knowing what is in store. i did as much housework as i could and crossed a few other things off my to do list knowing i had at least a couple of days in bed coming. i had already been grounded to bed several times by the hubby over the last couple of weeks with bad attacks, but this one. yuck. i can't even sew, draw, watch tv, get on the computer....nothing. i found myself standing just a few feet from the foyer trying to figure out what to do next as my brain and body were starting to feel crappier by the minute and i decided that something good is going to happen to me today. with that i felt the need to look out the sidelight window of my front door. i looked down and there is was.....
i saw that the penny was heads up and thought to myself how my dad would have approved of this one. he was a very superstitious guy.
i wobbled down the hall to get my phone so i could take a photo of where it was on the porch to show my hubby and kids later and found this new text message on my phone from my hubby......which i thought confirmed that the penny on the porch was definitely from my dad....but wait....it gets lots better.
it is a photo of a Sysco truck. that is the company my dad was working for up until the day he died. we always take it as a 'hi' from my dad when we see one.
my hubby is not tech savy at all. we have shown him hundreds of times how to save photos from a text message and how to text a photo to someone and whooooooofffff, it goes right in one ear and out the other and doesn't even mess up his hair! so, by the grace of God, he somehow was able to text me this.
this, though was not the first photo he took. this is......
my hubby, being the sweet guy he is, and listening to the voice....that quite honestly i don't even think he is aware of......he decided to get a better photo of the truck for me. it was his love for me and his instinct to pull in to the parking lot where the truck was and snap the first photo i showed you that gave me the hand written note from my dad.
as i looked at the photo my hubby texted me, i noticed a weird brown, transparent floaty thing to the left of the cab of the truck. i enlarged the photo on my screen......
you can actually read the word better in the second of the 3 photos. it appears to be a skeletonized leaf being blown by the wind, as it was quite breezy that day. it says 'dad' on it!!! my dad knew that brown blob would peak my curiosity. he sent me a note. it almost looks as thought the top part of the line of the first lower case 'd' was cut off, but that says dad....i was so excited to show my hubby and kids as they came home.
my dad did it again. this last photo is now on the lock screen of my phone. i can't tell you how many times a day i lock my phone just so i can see it. it is now the last thing i look at before i go to sleep and the first thing i look at in the morning. i feel so blessed to feel a kind of love i wanted so badly from my dad while he was alive, now.
it gets just a bit better.......
the evening our neighbor took his life, i was devastated. my heart ached to see him laying there in his backyard, alone. i kept praying for a sign that he made it 'home' safely and was at peace.
my husband and i stayed outside until the coroner van drove off with his body. while the csi and detective were gathering info i noticed a group of 's' in the sky. i tried to figure out what it meant, and i decided to take a photo of it in hopes i would figure the puzzle out on a later date. i figured it out when looking at the photos my hubby took of the Sysco truck, my dad was letting me know tom was safe and sound.
there is one 's' in the bluish color in the sky, kind of slanted, and 2 in the pink.
they kind of form a pattern, like this.
that just happens to be in the same pattern as the 's' in the Sysco logo.
so. if you have lost someone. please know, they are around you. you have to believe, be open to the experience.......and maybe be just a bit of a flake.
thank you daddy. i love you.
p.s. just realized i forgot to add this.....when i was going through my uploaded files to pick the photos for this post, one of the photos with the leaf signed dad, is photo number 465. i was born april (4th month) 1965. my birthday acknowledged by my dad.
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