My Dad

Okay, I'm ready to talk just a little bit about my dad. Not too much, though, since I'm currently not on antidepressants or seeing any kind of therapist and I don't want to break apart so much that I can't be there for my family.

I'm not really sure what I should be saying or feeling right now. I'm not so sure of what I expected from myself in this situation. I mean, I'm married and I have a baby. It's not like I needed my dad like I did when I was younger. There's just so much that was left unsaid. There's so much that could have been but isn't.

In the last few days of his life, he was very drugged up to keep him comfortable. When we, Daniel, Anya, and I, would visit him in the hospice facility, Anya would look at him and get excited. She would make her "play with me!" noises and didn't understand why her grandpa wasn't holding her. They had a connection with each other. Granted, from Anya's end, the connection probably related to all of the fun "toys" Grandpa was hooked up to that she could grab. In the hospital, when he would hold her, he would bring her close to his face to give her a kiss, but Anya, seeing a grabbable face, would reach out to pull his lips. Since he couldn't speak by this point, he would gently, but firmly yank her away from his face. She loved that game! She would crack up and giggle every time this happened, which made my dad smile a bit too.

My dad was always afraid of us as babies, and I don't think he held either of his own babies until we were around 6 months old. That's not to say he didn't cuddle us. He would have us on a pillow and wrap an arm around the baby. When Anya was closer to three months old, I was talking to my mom, holding a squirmy Anya, and all of a sudden, my baby was gone! I looked up to find that he had picked her up out of my arms and was cuddling her.

Okay, I think that's all I'm going to talk about right now.