Thursday, February 12, 2015

Ramblin' Wreck....

My Dad passed away early in the morning of February 5th.....
The same day, 19 years earlier, as his only sibling, his sister Betty.

He had been transferred from the hospital to a hospice center, as per his requests.
He passed quietly in his sleep, as he wanted, not hooked up to machines and monitors.

I did not believe his death was a possibility until the transfer to the hospice center on Monday, February 2nd.  I believed up until that point that he would recover again.  I knew it would of been a longer and more drawn out recovery, but I believed it would happen.

The issues attacking his body had other plans.

My Dad had very specific and defined views on his end of life care, and while they were hard to listen to when he told me about them a while back, I understood his reasoning and logic behind them.

It made parts of this whole experience, while I can't really say easier, more straightforward.

There were no questions or debates on what to do, we knew the steps that needed to take place....

And in the end, his death set him free.....

His death, however for me, triggered a massive loss of my self confidence.

I became the drama queen, which I am normally not (and DID NOT LIKE BEING)...
A Ramblin' Wreck...

I reached out and made missteps...
I was an open wound over sensitive to everything.
I was beyond quiet and could not seem to be anything else.
I accepted help from someone and by doing so hurt another.

I spent quite a bit of time on my own at my Dad and Ann's house and sat with my emotions.  Whenever I would visit in the past, Ann, his wife, would go to bed early and then Dad and I would stay up a little later and talk.  This time, Ann went to bed as usual, but I didn't have my normal conversations.  It was silent.

I grieved the silence.

I grieved the end of a two way conversation that had been going on for years, since we patched up our differences.

I accepted the past, not wishing it could be different.  Our path got us to where we needed to be and the things we learned and the mistakes we made got us there.

I loved.
A man who was human.
A man who accepted my humanness as well.

I love my Dad.
Death will never change that.

I will miss him.
Time will ease the pain, and leave the love,
but the longing will remain.

As we spent the weekend in Georgia together, we each chose a memento.  There were guns and fishing reels, but since I am neither a hunter or a fisher, they did not seem appropriate or right.

What I ended up feeling what was right, on the surface, probably won't make much sense either, until I explain it...

His Georgia Tech class ring.

I know,  I know.
I am a die hard University of Georgia fan.  (I met UGA, the dog, as a kid and some players and immediately threw my loyalty to the Dawgs.)
Georgia Tech is their instate rival.  My loyalty to the Dawgs always baffled my Dad, but he knew why I loved them and we always had fun on game days with it.

I willingly and openly chose a Tech item.
One that I wore as a kid and into Junior High....

I got a chain for it and wear it around my neck.

The Georgia Tech fight song or maybe school song,  I'm not quite sure which has a line in it that goes as follows...

'He was a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.'

He was also my Dad.....

Charles Harold Murphy
November 11, 1938 -- February 5, 2015

Bye Dad.
Love,
Your Daughter









1 comment:

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