Dear Dad: June 11, 2025

 


Dear Dad,

Your last birthday was 2 years ago and I remember it well.  (It doesn't hurt that I documented most of it here).  Of course what I remember clearly is not documented.  That I did buy you a chocolate donut and you only wanted about 1/4 of it.  I'm not complaining because you didn't eat the donut...it's that you didn't want to eat it and you were as big of a chocoholic as I am.  Maybe I should have realized then that this would be your last birthday.  Maybe I should have realized that the end was near, but this endless cycle of home, hospital, rehab, hospital had gone on for so long.  I thought it might never end...I feared that it might never end.  Hell, I don't know what I thought.  Those months were exhausting for everyone.

 I want to say if I only knew...but then you never can.  I should have figured out that you were never going to get better.  But instead I had to wait until a nurse finally told me what I should have known.  And then it was clear.  June 11, 2023 was your last birthday.

I had a dream last night about you.  It was winter/Christmas.  (Why would my brain go there?  Maybe because it was getting cold in the bedroom.)  I was on the phone with either Matt Lauer (?) or Tony  Dokoupil (??) about the fact that your Christmas present from LL Bean (or maybe it was Land's End?) wasn't going to show up in time.  And I was very upset about that.  (Anyone care to interpret that?)  The dream concluded with you calling saying what YOU were getting me was not available.  (More interpretation...go!)

I miss you on your birthday.  However, to be honest, I may miss you more on MY birthday.  (Since there are only 4 days between the two.)  You were the one who always got cards for the occasion.  I never realized how much I would miss that.  Yes, I still get cards for my birthday, but there was something about the cards you picked out.  They were always signed from you and mom, but I KNOW it was you.  And somehow my birthday doesn't feel the same without you and them.  It's just not as special.  This year I just didn't feel like celebrating and I think not having you around (again) was part of that.  You and your cards made a big difference to me...even though I didn't realize it at the time.  (So much that I didn't realize that I should have!)

As I approach the 2nd anniversary of your death, I still wonder what, if anything, I could have done differently.  I still second guess myself.  And though I try not to, I still feel guilt at not being there on your last day.  (I really DID think you would hang on until the 4th of July.)  But what's done is done and I did what I did, whether it was right or wrong.  (God, I hope it was right.)

Though we may not have said it enough...I love you dad.

Me




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