365 days.....

I'm not really sure how it has happened, but it has been a year since my Dad died.

How is that even possible?
Time, this year, has passed with light speed and dragged like it was going through cold molasses,
and yet here I am a year later..

Grief has been an interesting journey as I dealt with, survived and slogged through this year of firsts.  I have found that on the major days, birthdays, holidays and this anniversary, I go quiet.  I start avoiding looking at the pictures of him I have in my room and on my phone and I avoid Facebook and other social sites for the same reason.  In fact, I'm writing this in advance, because I know I need to express this, but as the actual date approaches (February 5), I will retreat into quiet.

The quiet is what is right for me....
at first, I tried to fight it, but I learned that if I just accept and flow through the quiet, I come out on the other side with new insights and peace that I didn't have before and if I don't fight it, it only lasts a day or so..

For the rest of the time, your help, advice and support has been right.  It's a mix and a balance and I'm sure that he would of been proud of me for finding this balance and making it through.

In the past year, I have found photos I had forgotten about of the two of us and have framed a couple of them and have them on my dresser where I see them daily.  My one true regret is that I was often behind the camera or avoided having my picture taken with my Dad because I didn't like my hair or I thought I looked fat or some other reason...  WHY?  Why did I let my insecurities get in the way of a memory?  It is a mistake that I am fixing with those still in my life...

One of the weirder thing that caused me grief until I had to let it go was his number in my phone and on my favorites list.  I can not tell you how many times that I had a question for him and dialed his number and it wasn't until I hit dial that I would remember and then get clobbered by grief....  Ironically, once I took his number off his phone, it didn't hurt as much and I started a new ritual.  I asked him anyway.  Quietly, in my head, and then I listen....  I generally get an answer pretty quick and I hear his voice in my head as I do, and you know what, the answer has been right and exactly what I needed.

And that is when I realized the most important thing of this year of grief....
he is still with me
and I am still his daughter.

Love your daughter....
Melissa

Diving into Procrastination....

I have edited, completely rewritten, and ignored this post long enough....

I started it in late February,
couldn't find the words I wanted, so I left it alone for a while.

I revisited it in early March,
and found I was in a mood to write privately, not here in my blog.

By late March,
I felt like too much time had passed to write it.

On the 5th day of April,
I have decided to just do it......

To write about my Polar Bear Plunge

or

How something that gets all messed up and ends up perfectly.

(Are you listening Melissa?  It doesn't have to be perfect)
Life lesson here....

I was supposed to do the Utah Special Olympic's Polar Plunge at Utah Lake on February 7th, a Saturday.

If you recall, I was in Georgia and it was 2 days after my Dad's death....
Plunging in Utah was not an option.

It dawned on me on that Saturday and I mentioned it to the family that was there, and they said, "Why don't you just jump into the pool here at Dad's house?"  It was unheated and I can verify COLD.

My original plan was to jump in my own clothes, but a better option was given, I would borrow clothes from family.

Standing on the pool deck, when it all seemed like a smart idea...

I dove...why, oh why did I dive?  The deeper I got, the colder it got...

completely submerged...

It wasn't where or how I had intended, but it was perfect.....

It shocked me out of deep grief and onto the road back to myself.....
It reminded me that in my last conversation with my Dad, I had mentioned I was doing a Polar Plunge and he had just laughed and said, "only you...."
It completed a Bucket List item in a very memorable way..
It reminded me of the love and support of family....
And it still raised money for a great cause.

It was not anywhere or how I had planned,
but I'm OK with that.

Life is a goofy, wonderful adventure that has twists and turns that you can never see coming...

I'm learning not only to embrace that, but
CELEBRATE it...

No more procrastination.
Dive in.
Melissa

Community....

In the past couple of weeks, I have come to realize what an amazing community of people I have in my life.

Some I see regularly,
Others not so much.

Some I talk to a lot,
Others randomly.

In the morning,
In the afternoon,
In the night,
Really all hours of the day....

In Person,
On the phone,
Text Messages,
Facebook,
Emails,
and every other form of communication you can think of.

I just want to say THANK YOU!!!  and I hope that I am there for you too.

I have been asked a question quite a bit lately and I have had a hard time answering it, but you have done it just the same.

"What can I do to help?"

You have held me in your love and support, and that is what I have needed.

Now that grief has lessened its initial grip, I have some things that I would like to suggest.  Some will be hard while others easier, but they are all important to me...

1.  This is a doozy, so I am going to start with this:
     Talk to your parents/spouses/significant others about end of life care.
When my Dad brought up what the subject for the first time, I balked.  I didn't want to talk about it, but he asked me to stay and it ended up being (believe it or not) a beautiful conversation.  Be honest.  Be accepting.  And realize this very important fact, if you talk to 10 people, you will get 10 very different decisions and wishes and they are all OK.   The conversation that I had with my Dad and the ones that he had with everyone else in the family made it so we KNEW what to do and there were no discussions and indecisions about what to do.  It strangely made it easier.....

2.  This is a practical one....
      Airlines have eliminated their Bereavement fares.
I have immediate family in 2 states separated by the majority of the continent.  Death/illness/accidents do not come with a 14 day advance warning.  Airfare purchased the day of is EXPENSIVE!!!!  Set aside some money for airfare if you are like me and have family far from you.  I had started a fund after the October health scare, but did not have near enough.  I was helped out by a friend who works with an airline, and if I did not have that option, family would of helped out.  Don't let financial issues keep you from being there.  I know money is tight, but trust me, family, especially in hard times is worth everything.

3.  Accept your emotions as they come.
    I have ugly cried.
    I have laughed.
    I have felt this is just weird.
    I have ached.
    I have been sentimental.
    I have been numb.
    I have had no appetite.
    I have been oh, so tired.
 
    and it is ok.  I am on the very strange journey of grief.

4.  Accept support when it is offered.
     If you are like me, and fairly independent, this may be a little hard.  People, who love you, just want to help in any way they can.  The support will be from expected and unexpected sources.   Accept that this is a time you are in need.

5.  Please know that I will be there for you....
    One of the greatest gifts of all of this is the firm knowledge that I have AMAZING people in my life who love and support me.  I feel the same about you.


The words that demanded to be put down are gone, so I will end this here.....

Feeling secure in my community,
Melissa

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

The Good with the Bad....

There are certain realities that you have to face when dealing with the impending death of a loved one.....and this post will be about mine.

From the ages of 16 to about 23, my relationship with my Dad was...
difficult,
tumultuous,
hard,
contentious,
and pretty much
non existant.

That is not any easy thing to admit to..
and it does not mean that I did not love him during this time, or that he did not love me.

Although, I think we both forgot that at times...

Hurt occurred on both sides through words and actions.
Invitations were not issued, offers were not made, promises were broken, and time was not spent together.

At our worst, it was like a field of land mines, a small misstep would lead to a large disaster.

Near the end of our troubles, without explaining to him why I was doing what I did, I did not speak to him for nearly 6 months.  I had to break the cycle of our behavior.  Looking back, especially after we talked about it later, I should of told him that was the reason why, but I did not have the tools at the time to do so..  I just needed the hurt to stop......

We, then, started the long, slow and sometimes very awkward process of rebuilding our relationship.  It had some starts and stops, but once we got real about the core issues of what had been going on, it got better.

I'm not going to go into the details, somethings are meant to stay private, but I am telling this because in dealing with his illness and impending death, I have been dragged back into the past by my self consciousness and find myself envious (I know, it's not my finest moment) of those in my Dad's life whose relationships seem (at least to me) simpler and without the drama.

There are things you can wish for...
that are never going to happen.

I can not go back in time and not say the words or feel the emotions that I did,
nor can my Dad, to avoid the time spent apart.

What I am trying to focus on is this....
We rebuilt our relationship, essentially from scratch, to form the bond we have today.  It is stronger than it was, because it is more honest than it was.

I am immensely proud of that fact and I know that he was too.

So that is my bad,
that I accept along with the good....
Melissa

Sitting With It....

On January 9th, my Dad suffered another seizure and unlike the last time, recovery is not happening, and today, we received the news that it is time to begin the process of letting go.  It hit me today, HARD, that my Dad will not be here much longer.

Deep Breath, Melissa....
My emotions were all over the place this morning, so I decided to sit with them today and not put them off or shove them down.

 Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice for Difficult Times" is one of my all time favorite books and I go to it often when I am having a hard time and today I almost immediate found this passage.

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy"

Today, I let room in for grief.  I sat with it.  I acknowledged it.  I cried.  I laughed at memories when friends called and I talked.  I felt the heaviness of it on my body and mind.  I shared the information that I had held close to my heart because sharing it would make it all to real.  I have even let the anger be.....

Today, I let it be real,

and in letting be real, I have found some truths that will never be broken.

My last phone call with my Dad, the day before he went back into the hospital, was beautiful and left nothing unsaid.

The last time I saw him in person, it was an amazing visit full of long conversations and ended with a long hug.

I am so incredibly grateful for my brother, sister in law, niece, cousin, my dad's wife, and all the others who live in Georgia who have been there in person day in and day out during his illness.

I know that I am in a process and can not take every day to just 'sit with it', but I needed it today and came up with some things to do everyday to acknowledge whatever I am feeling.....

And lastly, I am so incredibly grateful for your love, support, and acknowledgement of how hard this is.  I am beyond words in awe of you.

Love
Melissa

Moving Forward....

I thought I would give an update on how we are doing around here....

We are ok.

Humphrey's death clobbered me and I am still grieving.  I do not think that I have been hit as hard by a dog's death as I have been by his.  He was my boy.....  I think the trust that he gave me and the patience I learned from him were such life lessons that he went deeper into my heart.  I have had a bit of the blahs and have fallen back onto the Diet Coke crutch, which is something I will be working on (avoiding emotional eating and Diet Coke consumption), but I can only handle so much at once.   Going to Georgia for almost a week really helped, but I will still tear up at certain times of the day or when the silence gets to me.  It turns out he was a fairly noisy dog.  Snorting, sighing, barking to get your attention, and the such which kept the noise and energy level fairy high around here for a basset hound's house anyway.

Bacall is a much quieter dog.  I never knew how quiet until now.  It's been interesting to figure out how to interact with her without trying to replicate the things I used to do with Humphrey.  I have never had one on one time with her, Humphrey was always in the background.  She will sigh or give the basset hound equivalent of an eye roll when I do something that is not her style.  Adding to her grief, and she is grieving, while she was at boarding, she managed to get an infection on the skin on her neck and has been one sick little camper the past week.  She is on a steroid, antibiotics, and a cream to help fight the infection.  Since the early part of May, she has lost 6 pounds.  Fortunately her appetite is starting to come back and I am seeing glimpses of her sunny personality.

Once Bacall is feeling better, I will be adding another dog to the mix.  Not a puppy and probably not a Basset, but I don't get to decide, Bacall will.......

I've decided to deal with myself with a bit of grace with everything that has happened lately and not beat myself with those negative comments that pop into my head.  I have not exercised with regularity and  the Diet Coke issue, so I have gained a couple of pounds... grrrr.  I am now recognizing it and getting back on the wagon, so maybe that is the lesson of all of this.

Just keep moving forward.
And forgive yourself if you just need to stand still for a bit to catch your breath....

Healing,
Melissa

Goodbye, My Sweet Prince.

my boy....

Humphrey lived in a house full of women,
and often was teased for it.  I would ask him if he wanted his nails done and he would just sigh....

I would leave the tv on for him on sports when I left the house just to get some manly energy in his life.

We are now a house of only women.

Humphrey is no longer with us.

On Wednesday evening, he was hanging out in the front room with me when he suddenly ran out of the room.  I could see him when he stopped.  He looked scared, then it happened.  A bigger event, whatever it was, that had him scurrying back to me.  The only problem, his back legs no longer worked.  He was dragging them.  I got to the floor next to him and his fur was still standing up near his tail and his upper body was just quivering.  His back legs had no movement at all....  It was like he had been shocked by a massive electrical bolt.  I've been describing it to people like this, Humphrey had a 'Spinal Seizure.'

I sat with him just petting and comforting him for about 15 minutes to see what would happen, per experience from his seizure this past fall, but in my mind, I think I knew immediately that this was different, but my heart did not want to believe what I was seeing. He did not improve.  The quivering did not end and you could see pain beginning to creep into his eyes.  A call to the vet occurred next, but guess what?  My normal vet was closed.  It was 7pm.  Emergency Vet time......

It was time to go, even if I really did not want to, but I knew I needed to....
My amazing neighbor helped me get Humphrey into the car.  80 plus pounds of Humphrey was never easy to move, but this time H could not help me at all and there was no way I could of done it alone.  It was a gesture of compassion and kindness and I will be forever grateful.  My mom and Bacall joined me on the drive to the Vet.

I knew before I left the house that Humphrey would not be coming back.....  It is the hardest, yet the most important, part of having pets in your life.  This moment of compassion.  Of letting go...

You see, dogs have hearts that will not give up on you.  If they have a choice, they will stay with you. They will suffer pain as long as you still love them.  They will not give up.

The vet, whom I had never met, came in and agreed that there was no coming back from whatever had happened and the compassionate and right thing to do was to end his suffering.

I had one last responsibility in the gift of having Humphrey in my life....I had to let him go.

He died peacefully in my arms...
with Bacall near by.

We are now dealing with the silence of his missing presence.

Bye Boo....

In Mourning....
Melissa