It was 5 years ago, but I remember it so vividly.
I was in the kitchen, at the table in Brentwood, Tennessee. It was dinner time, but my appetite was non-existent. Matter of fact, I felt nauseated. I took my two daughters upstairs and let them play with their toys, but something just didn’t feel right, I felt horrible.
Then the text came through from my cousin, it said something about heaven. My heart dropped, my brain connected the dots. I called my mom and she didn’t have to say a word, I could feel the heat of her tears through the phone.
Five years ago, I lost you. Your soul left this world. I could even pinpoint the time when it did, I was downstairs attempting to eat that dinner that my mind was rejecting. I was supposed to fly down to see you later that week.
When it was confirmed you were gone, I felt like crumbling. My legs felt like jello, my heart was pounding, it was so hot. I can remember saying, “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye”. My ex-husband held me up, as we stood in our daughter’s bedroom.
But there was this awareness I had, I didn’t want to scare my kids. If I let all of what I felt go, I don’t think I would’ve been able to rein it back in and I most surely would’ve sent my kids into a panic.
So I calmly purchased a flight back to my hometown. In between the tears, I packed. I barely slept. I was in disbelief, that in the morning, I was headed home to help my mom bury my dad.
…..
He was the toughest person I’d ever know. Over the next few days my family talked about all the stories. That time during his childhood when he had to run home as a group of guys in a truck chased him yelling racial epithets at him. Or that time when he was a store manager and was in an armed robbery situation. The months of rehabilitation he went through after heart surgery. All of that and so much more and I NEVER heard him complain. Never.
When you come from tough parents, strength is automatically a part of you. They didn’t have to build it up in me, it was already there. But I didn’t fully tap into it until my father’s death, and I’ve been tapping into it ever since.
So as I keep moving forward with this inherent strength; on this day, I honor your memory Dad.
Five years feels like five minutes.