33 Years Ago

Wow when you say it like that is sounds so long ago, a life time for some, so long, decades, and yet it was yesterday. I can still hear my mothers voice on the phone, sounding not at all like herself, giving me news that would change my world, our world, forever. That phone call that tore half of the foundation of my life out from under me. My father had died, suddenly, without warning, and oh my God, way too soon for all of us. We had him for 57 years and then he was gone in the blink of an eye.

To be sure a swift and sudden death was best for him. He would never have tolerated a long lingering illness that would have turned him into a burden to anyone. His independent spirit would have hated that. He would have hated to not be able to do for himself, look after his family and to be helpless or weak. So to be clinically fair this was the best way but, why so soon, why when he was young and vital and just beginning to reap the rewards of a hard working life? I don't understand and maybe I never will.

I miss him, I miss the man who loved me unconditionally, who treated me like I hung the moon and made me feel  so special. I miss his humour, his strength, his love, his goofiness, his ease with people. He was a good man, flawed in some ways, perfect in others but at heart a good man. He gave us the best that he could and we were so  lucky to have had him.

In the great and grand scheme of things I have come to terms with the fact that things happen for a reason. We have no say in these things, something else guides such decisions.  I can come to terms with that but I want to know why. I have so many questions that I need answers too and the sudden early death of my father is only one of them.

Some years the anniversary of his passing slips by me and I don't remember it until a few days later, some years like this one it haunts me all day long and I mourn once again the passing of this man who left such a big hole in my heart. An empty space that will never be filled again. Its still there, I checked today, 33 years later and its still there. Not so fresh and raw as it once was but still there, right beside the one left by Mom 19 years later.

Miss you Dad.

Linda