One of those moods.......

I figured I would do a little blogging since Chris is taking over the Xbox 360, and Desperate Housewives is out of the question.  Plus, Hayley is watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua so I simply have some free time on my hands.  Nothing much has gone on since my last blog.  My life is pretty well the same everyday.  It feels much like Groundhogs Day.......everyday.

I have really had my dad on my mind a lot over the past couple of days.  That usually happens when I have time to sit and think.  I guess everyone has their days.  I usually have a good few days, and then a couple of bad ones in between.  I can't help but to think of everything.  I know it has been 4 months since my father's passing, but I often still find myself questioning if all this is really happening.  It doesn't feel like I should be making it through life without him.  I know everybody who loses someone they love feels like this, I am sure, but it just doesn't feel normal.  It's almost like I am having to learn how to live all over again, but don't know where to begin.

People often say that I should think of the good times w/ my daddy, but it seems I can't even think about them.  When I think of the good times it's often overshadowed w/ sad thoughts of  "That will never happen again...."  I guess people just don't think about it from day to day....you know when you are close to somebody......the thought of never seeing them again.  I guess that's something you don't really want to think about.

I find it hard to even listen to the radio anymore.  Me and daddy used to love to turn the music up and sing our hearts out, so it seems every single song on the radio reminds me of him and I am saddened all over again.  Sometimes when I am driving down the road I can still hear him say "Pull over here.....let me talk to my buddy.." or "Go ride by this place and let me show you something...".  I have a hard time getting through the grocery store.  There were very few times that I ever went to the grocery store w/out him, so of course when I go, I picture him standing there w/ me asking me to cook a particular food for him.  When I cook dinner, I think about him.  He loved when I cooked  so when I do cook something I always think "Daddy would be loving this right now."

I have found myself in this slump, and I am the type of person that once I get knocked down, it's hard to get back up.  I know my daddy would want me to go back to being me.  He used to love my fun nature.  The way I could laugh about much of anything and turn something serious into something comical.   I know that this is not the Taylor he would want, but I can't help it.  There are just too many things that play over and over again in my head that I can't get out.  Maybe w/ time it will get better.

I often question why???  Why did he have to go through all that?  Why did we?  It is so unfair.  He was 52.  Even when I get passed the thought of  "it was just his time", I can't get passed the thought of the way he suffered. Nobody should have to endure that.  Ever.  For him to suffer, or for us to have to watch him suffer.....it's just cruel.  My daddy may not have lived the life he should have lived, but he was a good person.  He would have done anything in this world for anyone, if at all possible.  He often put everybody elses needs before his own.   I don't know that I will ever have the answers.  I just hope someday soon the thoughts of his last days leave my mind so I can start thinking about the good days I had w/ him.

I remember a week before he passed so well.  He had definitely gotten worse over the months, but the last week of his life just happened so fast.  I remember leaving out for a Jason Aldean concert on the Friday before he had passed.  I was so excited and he knew I was.  I got ready for the concert and as I was leaving I said "Bye, daddy...I love you.  I will see you later tonight when I get home"...He said "Bye, baby.  Have fun and be careful.  I love you, too."  That plays over and over in my head.  The next night is when I realized that my daddy was no longer my daddy.  He was gone.  Eddie and Murphy were sleeping the living room with him, and Eddie came to my door at about 4 or 5 in the morning to tell me that something was wrong w/ my dad.  I knew when he knocked on my door that it was bad.....I thought he was dead.  When I walked down the hall into the living room I saw my daddy .  He was having his seizures.  Worse than I had ever seen before.  I didn't know what to do.  He was on Hospice so I knew I couldn't take him to the hospital.  I knew had I called Hospice they probably wouldn't have been able to do anything either.  As I stared at my dad, I realized that what I was looking at was worse than what I had initially thought.  At that moment, I remember thinking how relieved I was that my daddy was alive, but how very sad I was that he looked like that.

I had tried to stay strong for my dad the whole time he was sick. I've always been the type to never cry, so I knew that if I did, he would worry.   He would know it was bad.  I didn't want him to ever be scared.  As I stood in the living room and watched him, I couldn't keep the tears back any longer. I stepped out on my front porch and cried harder than I had ever cried before in my life.  I stayed out there a while because I didn't want to come back in because I knew he would be able to see the pain in my eyes.

That day I went to pick Hayley up from her Granny's (she had spent the night w/ her the night before....Thank God), I cried the whole way to her house and couldn't quit.  I cried when I got there, and I went by my sisters to cry w/ her.  I cried the whole way home.  At that point, I knew it was over.  The whole year of taking care of my daddy, and him being right by my side at any given time....was over.  It was only a matter of days  before I would never see him again.

That day I went to my daddy's to start getting ready for him to go home.  I am now so mad at myself for waiting as long as I did to get him home. I knew I couldn't let him die at my house or my sisters.....He needed to be home.  Where he wanted to be all along. I realized on that day, that he wouldn't die until he was where he was comfortable. When he had initially moved in w/ me he would always say "I can't wait for them to finish my house, I am ready to be home."  Then towards the last month or so of his life he never mentioned wanting to go home.  I think he knew that once he made it home, he would die.  I had spent a couple of days cleaning  his house and came home one evening and said "Daddy!  I almost have your house ready!  I know you are ready to go home."  He didn't say anything.  About an hour later he yelled for me, "Taylor!  Come here!"  I went in there and he said, "Are you ready for me to go home?"  I said "No!", He said "Are you sure?  Are you trying to get me home because you are tired of taking care of me?"  I said "No, daddy!...Where ever you are, I am."  He said  "Okay...I was just making sure."  When I think about that it breaks my heart.  Did he die thinking that I didn't want him here anymore?? 

He was so pitiful that week.  He would lay in the recliner and have his seizures off and on, and I would sit beside him on the floor.  I will never forget this.....One day I was sitting beside him, and he hadn't hardly spoken much of anything for a couple of days.  When he did, he didn't make much sense.  He was laying there and I said "Daddy, do you want me to sing to you??"  He opened his eyes, looked at me and plain as day said "Goooooooodddddd NO!" Lololol.   Bless his heart.  Even as sick as he was he knew he didn't want to hear that! LOLOL!

 Hospice always asked if we had told him he didn't have long to live.  No.  We didn't. We couldn't.  We couldn't find it in our hearts to do that.  How do you say something like that to somebody you love?  You just can't.  We lived our lives like he would pull through.  Obviously death is a very scary thing for anyone.  We didn't want him to have that worry on his last days.  We all knew what was happening, but we never spoke of it.

On the day my daddy passed away, Hospice had told us we needed to say our goodbyes.  They say that it helps people in his situation to let go and leave this world w/ the blessing of the people they love.  They wanted us to tell him it was okay to let go.  That we would be fine.  We did just that.  I lied to my daddy on that day.  I spoke to him, and told him I'd be fine.  That it was okay to let go.  I told him he need not worry about a thing because we would all make it just fine.  I knew as I was saying it that it wasn't the truth.  I did what I had to do for his sake.  As selfish as it may seem, I didn't want to tell him any of that.  It just wasn't true.  I knew I wouldn't be okay w/out him.  I knew my life would never be the same or even close to it.  Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to stop any of this.  The only choice I had was to give him the comfort he needed to let go. 

It's been said that people who are in that state (comatose) before passing, that they can still hear everything you are saying.  They may not be able to respond, but they can hear.  It's true. The night before he passed I was talking to him and trying to soothe him.  More or less letting him know that we'd be fine.  He didn't move, but I saw a tear coming from his eye.  He heard me.  He knew what was to come.   We kids were his life.  That is exactly why he fought for as long as he did.  He worried about us.  He worried about how we would make it w/out him.  I often worried about that, too.  And still do. 

The day my daddy passed,  I was in the room w/ him.  He was in his hospital bed and I sat across from him on the other bed.  Me and my family were speaking of my dad's parents (who had both already passed), when my daddy took his last breath.  It was almost like he was at peace hearing about his parents, and was just ready to be w/ them.  I was far from at peace.  I left the room, went to the back of the house, and laid there on the floor.  I was blank.  People were coming in and out, and I didn't have the strength to lift my head to even see who was coming or leaving.  I just laid there and cried.  Uncontrollably.  Probably for a good hour or so.  Chris begged me to get up.  I really wanted to, but just couldn't.  I honestly didn't have the strength, and I couldn't for the life of me grasp what had just happened.

One of the great things about my dad was that as much as he hurt for a good part of his life....he never complained about how he felt.  He would be miserable and somebody would call and ask how he was and he'd say "I guess I can't complain...I'm doing okay".  I'd ask him why he wouldn't tell people he was hurting and miserable and he'd say "There's no sense in them worrying about me." Like I said in a previous post, he'd be out in the yard playing w/ the kids and his sugar would be 600.  I'd say, "Daddy, are you okay?  You don't look good."  He'd say he was fine.  He just never made a big deal about how he felt.  Even at his weakest, he was strong.  Even though I knew deep down that he was tired of living, I also knew deep down that he would fight to live.....for us.   And he did.  He fought till the bitter end.

My daddy was everything to me.  Even at his worst, in my eyes, he was the best.  I know dying is a part of life.  That's clear.  But I also know that w/out certain people in your life, it's hard to live it.  He was my rock.

I have really found that since I have started blogging and getting all these thoughts out, that it really does help to relieve some of the pain.  I realize that the people reading these are thinking how brutal it is to hear all of this, but this truly is for my therapy.  I can only hope that anyone reading these would realize just how very important it is to cherish the people in your life because it's true.......One day they're here.....the next day they're gone.