Goodbye Poops!

It's been a month to date that my father passed away. I might be bias, but he was the greatest man ever! I called him Poops. My nick name for him was a long time running joke. I misspelled Pops on a birthday card and the name just stuck. How can he gone?

Though my mother is alive, I feel like an orphan. Why is lossing your father so devistating? I still at times feel numb, angry, disbelief but most of all just sad. Sometimes I feel all those emotions at once.

If you read back on this blog, I wrote about the adventures that he and my mom had. The time they went to the grocery store and my blind mother wondered off and my father left without her-then came back a moment later when he got in the car and realized she was missing-only because it was quiet.

And then there was the time they reported the car stolen and for days thought the worst of humanity-how could someone take their car? It took days for them to realize they had forgotten that they parked the car in a different space at their condo unit. When my father found it, he called me laughing, leaving a classic message on my machine, "if you want to hear the funnest story ever, call me."

And then there was the time I was to meet them for my birthday dinner. We both sat in the main room, eight tables from each other not realizing the other was there. I sat there for over an hour waiting, worrying. It wasn't until I heard my mother telling the waitress they were waiting for their daughter who was over an hour late that we found each other. The three of us felt so dumb. One, that we never got up to look around and two, that we all filled up on bread!

My God we're an observant bunch!

To be honest, i thought I'd be prepared for his death, at least a little bit. I wasn't.

I miss him so. My father was my greatest fan and supporter, no matter what it was. He kept score at my soft ball games, clapped with pride at my dance recital and watched with enthusiasm only a parent could have at all the shows I put on in the back yard. My world feels empty without his laughter, his eternal optimism and ever gratefulness. He was such a quiet, gentle man, who smiled through the pain of gout, and frustration of diabetes and the loss of his hearing. If I'm broken hearted, how must my mother feel, dealing now with the loss of a man who slept beside her for 65 years.
I'm homesick for a time I can't go back to, for a person I can no longer call mine. I want to lash out, scream in anger that the world continues on, not caring in the least that a wonderful, kind, generous gentleman like my father is gone. I guess that's part of the grieving.

I pray I never forget the sound of his voice, the feel of my hand in his, or the tightness of his embrace the last time we hugged.

I love you, Poops. I know one thing, if I hadn't have been your daughter, I would have wanted you as a friend. Thank you for everything!