Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

myABBAsheart's Blog

  • entries
    7
  • comment
    1
  • views
    4,739

Morning my Dad died.


myABBAsheart

729 views

The morning my Dad died was a rough one. I had a horrible fight with my oldest daughter over school. She is very difficult to deal with and stubborn. It is hard for her to take responsibility. Actually, she won't try at times and that I battle with her. I know she can whether she can get it right or not. I just want to see her effort and be pleased in herself when she does.

She can be disrespectful and play all kinds of games so she does not have to work. I love her and see more in her than she realizes. We homeschool our five children, not really by choice. It sort of ended up that way and now we live it. Mostly my oldest had severe ear infections and surgery for a new ear drum. The school was not helpful in this. I saw him slipping and took matters into my own hands. My youngest son, was very ill for a long time. He had severe allergies and his immune system was shot due to antibiotics at birth. He came within forty five minutes of dying at birth. His body had shut down from severe infections. They told me if we left the hospital he would of been dead by the time we pulled into the driveway. He spent about two weeks in NICU and another five years trying to get him to function and have energy. My daughter was born with a Congenital Heart Defect known as Bicuspid Aortic Valve. She has insufficiencies as well and had symptoms so early, it was considered rare for her to have. She had a horrible birth that caused her cord to strangle her twice around her neck and three times around her body. She tore my placenta during delivery and lost oxygen. She was blue as a smurf. She has been a handful from day one. So it kills me when I do everything I know to do naturally to help her, and she is disrespectful towards us. I an not sure if this is right, but I have to remind her of things so she gets how much her father and I have sacrificed for her, as well as her other siblings.

I got so upset with her attitude and using my arsenal of energy to get her motivated. This particular morning, I made her sit on the stoop in the front. This is like me kicking her out.....DONE! Of course, I don't. I calm down and we may or may not move forward from there. The stress is real! When she was outside, I went in and just started straightening up. (slamming books around). I put away my cookbooks that were stacking up. I have my old great grandmothers hoosier cabinet, that she herself removed the old knobs and placed pretty glass ones in its spot. I see this and it reminds me of where I get my style from. I love that she did this. I use it to store my cookbooks.

We moved recently and I had misplaced some pictures of my dad from Vietnam. There were three of them that had writing on the back. When he received my mothers care packages, he sent them to her after awhile. They exchanged letters and such until he was discharged. He served two rounds of orders. He was on his second order. The first was two years. The second I believe was a few months, then he was injured in his back. I used to touch his bare back. I remember him taking his shirt off when I was little and I shrieked. He still has pieces of shrapnel deep in his back. I used to rub my hands over his scars. All I knew was he went through something bad. There is one picture of him in the set of three, that makes me realize how I don't think I ever saw him as happy as he was in this. He had a beer in his hand and had a different look in his eyes. Like he did not even realize later what kind of emotional wounds would scar the rest of his life. To me, he carried looks of love in his eyes and sorrow, all at the same time. HIs pain was felt. I felt it. I internalized it.

I had knew these pictures would turn up on its own in a box or an album I had so carelessly stuffed them in. I put my cookbook away on the Hoosier cabinet, a cabinet that holds only candles, books, and extra dishes as well. I put the cookbook with the others, and out pops the photos, as if someone or something had pushed them from behind. I looked at the bookcase, studying the back of it, thinking how odd they just fell out like that. They were in a zip lock bag together and I was kind of surprised that I did not see them before. But YAY...Ok, I am happy I found them. They are the old paper ones that are thick with the photo paper on top, kind of like a postcard but thick. I grabbed them in excitement. I was going to send them to my nephew, who collects war memorabilia, so I was happy to find them.

I had let go of my Dad emotionally the weeks following my move. I had grieved him. Not the first time either. However, between forgetting my birthday again and just the rollercoaster he had unknowingly put us on our whole life, was too much. He always made me fix things with him and my brothers. In some ways, maybe he saw gift in me, most ways I am his child, he is not mine. He called me about the time that I had just moved. My old number was still connected and I was able to receive messages. We did not tell him we were moving, I was not sure if we would do this ourselves. It was very stressful and my panic attacks were happening again. I could not deal! I though, knew I was trying to make my life my own, not about him. I had too. I need a break. I am tired and have a lot going on. I need a place I can prepare a future for my oldest daughter. You knew my house was for sale. You could not just give me a minute. I am only human. I am just a kid.

He hated change, he hated not having control. I live a thousand miles away, why were you so irate that I moved twenty minutes away from my old house? You never used the computer, you used to say they would blow up on us, so social media is out when he had fears with even touching it. All I wanted was you, just you. I did not want to hear about your girlfriend and her family, every single time I called. All I know is your favorite color was orange, you gardened. I never new what it was like to be normal with you. I want you to know us too. To support us, to visit us, to call us, to be there. It was always about you. I did not want to hear you leave me a message on the phone telling me off and then switch off to nicey-nice. I could not handle that. I already feel small enough. I just had to do what I had to do for me. My husband and I had to start over. We had to start new. We (I) needed a minute.

How selfish of you that you would not get that. How selfish of you that you could not understand that I don't belong to you. How selfish of you to forcefully talk to me and get angry mad, then switch over to how angry you are with my brother for not calling. When are you going to understand that it is not us? How dare you claim you called and reached out when you did not. I know you did not, we all knew this, we were the little kids waiting and hoping for you to come and be with us after you promised to see us after school. You never showed. Time and time again...we had hope...it got shattered...we believed you....it got shattered again....we held onto hope...it got shattered. I got so mad at you and told you to wake up before it was too late. I told you how you did this, how your choices with choosing your girlfriend and her daughter over us, were so wrong. You never even paid attention to our needs when we lived twenty minutes away, your mad for us being so far away. How dare you stalk me on Facebook with your girlfriend, and act as if I was the one causing all this. Especially someone who claims they won't text, or write, or hate the phone. What else are we supposed to do. We never could get you to get it, to see. Someone else was always the problem. I told you that you needed to fix this and fix it now, especially with my older brother who was deeply hurting. I told you to at least do that! I think you finally heard me. I' m not sure. This was nine months before you died.

Those pictures fell into my hand that day. I threw them on the table and muttered whatever. I stopped. I was spiritually told to stop and look at them. I calmed my anger down with my daughter and picked them up. I remember thinking, do you see Dad? Do you see what I have to deal with, how I am trying to take care of children, who need me more then ever, it is not about you. I cannot even take care of myself half the time. I picked up the picture of you holding the beer and kissed it. I told that man in the picture, "Whatever happened to you? Just know that I love you. I have always loved you. It just was never enough for you. I'm sorry Dad." I prayed over this picture too. I told God that morning to give this man peace and let him see how much we suffered for him to love us, when we all loved him so much. It just was never enough.

As I was talking to the pictures, the phone rang. My husband works from home, so the phone usually rings and I ignore it. He came upstairs after five minutes and sort of demanded to talk to me at that moment. I went in to the bedroom and told him to just tell me. I knew someone died because he told me to sit down. Last time he told me that my mentoring boss died, I knew the routine. I thought if my stepfather died, I could handle it. I know where his heart and faith are. I was not wanting to hear it was my Dad. I was going to call you that day. I thank God you did not suffer in your dying. That was all I ever wanted for you on this earth. I love you....your with Christ now. You are in his hands. I must go forward now. You have all the love you need!

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now