Missing Him

Donald Ray - My beloved Daddy

Today is my daddy's birthday.  He would have been 80 years old.  He passed away December 21, 2007 with his family by his side.  Adoring him until the very end.  Adoring him still. 

I am the youngest of 5 children.   The baby (there are 11 years between me and my next oldest sister). The princess.  The ultimate daddy's girl.  My dad was (and is) the wisest, wittiest, most compassionate, hard working and loving man I have ever known.

He entered the hospital for complications from asbestosis on December 12th.  When he realized that he would not be coming home for Christmas, he instructed my momma to buy his 4 daughters heart lockets as his last Christmas gift to us.  She gave us our lockets on Christmas Eve along with a message from Dad: "You are my heart".  I wear my necklace every day.  (My brother received a watch - and the message that Dad would love him until the end of time).

 
That is the essence of my dad.  The man whose family was the most important thing in the world for him. The man who could make everything better just by entering the room.  I told him once when I was in junior high school and had been through a particularly difficult day that no matter what went wrong - as soon as I entered through our back door I knew everything would be all right.  I told him I believed that our house was "magic".  He just smiled and wrapped me in a hug.  

And I truly did believe it - until the first time I entered the house after he was gone.  The house wasn't magic - Daddy's love was.  I hope everyone, at some point in their lives, gets to experience the unconditional love, the "knowing" that you are the most important person in the world to someone that I grew up with.

Most days now I speak of him with laughter.  Other days I can barely utter his name without dissolving into a puddle of tears.  It is very difficult for me to understand how the world - my world - can continue to exist without him in it. 

Well meaning friends told me that it would get easier with time.  It hasn't.  A very close friend lost her father over 10 years ago and I asked her - how much longer?  When will it get easier?  She tenderly replied that it never get easier - but you learn to live with it.  I am very slowly learning to live with it.