In Memory

I had planned on posting photos of the girl's 1st birthday, and I will in a day or so, but I got some pretty bad news yesterday (Jan 1).

I got a call from my youngest brother, Larry, that my Dad had died. He had just moved to a new place in rural Florida and no one had heard from him in days, so the police went out to check on him. He was found dead on the floor from an apparent heart attack. It looks like that he had been dead a couple of days.

It's only been in the last few months that I had begun to reconcile with Dad, and he was SO happy to know that I was ok and had married and he got to see pictures of Libby and Mel. I'm happy that I've talked to him and that there was no ill feelings between the two of us.

I think that he knew his time was short over Christmas. When we got home from Sue's folks, he had left 3-4 messages, each a bit more frantic than the last wanting to know if we were ok.

Sue spoke to him that evening (her first time ever to talk to my Dad) and I was to call him the next day. I never got a hold of him.

My brothers (Steve and Larry) are going down today to tie up the loose ends and to cremate the body. The memorial service will be decided on later. I'll keep you informed on that.

I've been going through the roller coaster that is the grief cycle and its tough as I've come to realize that I have never really grieved over my mother's death 28 years ago.

*sigh* Sometimes being a grownup sucks. But then I look into my girl's faces and all seems so much better.