Adios

Four days after my last blog post (end of July) I was having lunch with my really good friend from work and her daughter. She usually gets the raw end of the deal and has to listen to me ramble on about the goings-on of my life. She has seen me cry more often than someone should cry at work. She also gets to hear all my completely hilarious jokes, so I think we are even. Anyway, we were having lunch and my brother called me. He usually only calls me to tell me some contrived reason he thinks our mother loves him more than she loves me, so I was expecting something light-hearted at the Cheddars table that afternoon. Nope. He was calling to tell me that our dad had a stroke. 

The next month was a ridiculous roller coaster of emotion. 

My parents were divorced when I was in high school, and my dad and I didn't have an awesome relationship. He was always still close with my brothers, but we lost our connection. I had a lot of anger toward him, that I slowly dealt with in various ways. It was incredibly difficult to see the man that I knew as my dad to lie helplessly in a bed. It wasn't the way he would have wanted to live, so we made the decision as a family to place him in hospice care. That was hard. 

It had been about 3 weeks from when he had the stroke to when he was moved to hospice care. I was a mess of emotions and didn't know how to feel. Of course I was mourning the inevitable loss of my dad, but I was in a different situation than my brothers were in. They had a relationship with him. They had good recent memories of him, while all I had were some unreturned voicemails on my phone that always went the same way: Kacee Lyn, it's your daddy. It's [insert day of the week, time, am/pm]. Give me a call when you get a chance please. I love you. Adios.

I debated whether or not I wanted to share this next part, but I decided that I wanted to make sure I didn't forget it. 

He never really became coherent after the stroke. He never followed commands like squeeze my hand, look at me- even though we begged. He smiled at both of my brothers one day, but wouldn't do it again when asked. He was always really uncomfortable, squirmy, would mumble from time to time, but was definitely not in his right mind.  He was in hospice for about a week, and was only awake for the first few days. The last day I saw him awake I was telling him how I was leaving, but would be back later. I was holding his hand and telling him how much I loved him when he raised my hand up to his mouth and kissed. 

I am so glad Kyle was in the room to see it happen so I knew I didn't make this up. I think about that kiss a lot. It didn't erase the last 10 years, but it reminded me that my dad is human. 

We didn't get any closure, or even a chance to say goodbye. I have always struggled with how to feel (how I wanted to feel vs. how I probably should), but now I can't undo that. I can't chose to make up with him. I can't go back and return those voicemails. However, I have come to realize that I do get to choose the memories I replay in my head. So I'll choose to remember how he taught me to tie my shoes and how to do square roots (not on the same day), the pranks we would play on my mom, and the look on his face while he was waiting to hear my punchline. 

I wrote this blog post and didn't post it immediately for multiple reasons. The main one is that I didn't know how to end it. I have nothing strong and poignant to say. I have no sarcastic (which I 100% got from him) saying, or even a Mean Girls quote. So, I guess I'll just say what my dad always did.

Adios.