Actually, Day 22 is supposed to be What's In Your Purse? But since I answered that on Day 12, I decided to make this a day of reflection.
Today is a very bittersweet day. Twenty-four years ago, for the very first time, I woke up in the morning after a full night's sleep with only one kidney. The anesthesia from the day before was beginning to wear off, and steps were being taken to finally rid my body of the infection that had been ruling it for so many years. Twenty-four years ago was the first day of a new life for me.
Six years ago, I was sitting at a desk on my first day of a new job at Wynn Salon Services. I was tired, it was stressful, but it was nice to have a job again. I was thinking I'd turned a corner.
Only a few hours later, I was sitting in a private room at the hospital, being told my father was dead. I guess that was the wrong corner to turn.
As I sit here thinking of my dad, I have a wide collection of emotions. I'm happy that he's done fighting, and that he's no longer in pain and suffering. For the most part, I've gotten over the shock of him not being here. I've grown somewhat accustomed to life without him in it. Most of the time, I don't expect him to walk in the door at the end of the day, or call my from his cell phone to ask me if I saw that catch on the Braves game.
Now, it's different things that make it hard. It's watching that Braves game, and realizing that Daddy didn't see Brian McCann play in the All-Star game his first full year in the majors (2006), let alone every All-Star game since then (Go, Mac!). Dad has no idea that Jason Collier, of Indiana, Georgia Tech, and Atlanta Falcons fame, died tragically of a heart condition in October 2005. He has no idea that I'm friends with my Indiana heroes (Luke Recker and Kirk Haston) on Facebook. Actually, Dad had probably never even heard of Facebook at the time he died. Can you imagine what he would say if he know Mama was active on Facebook?!!?
What's difficult is making plans to go to a college basketball tournament with Gerald in November, and realizing that I've never been to a college basketball tournament without Dad. College basketball was what he loved SO much. If he were alive, you can bet that he'd be going down to Orlando with us. And he'd probably figure out a way to take me to Disney while we were down there.
Daddy has no idea what Hurricane Katrina was, or how devastating the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan were. He has no idea that both of the Rice boys are fathers (and maybe it's a good thing he doesn't know, as the thought might just frighten him to death). He doesn't know that Brandon and Megan just celebrated their fifth anniversary, or that Michael has two kids. The fact that life has continued on, as if nothing happened on that day, six years ago, is sometimes difficult to grasp.
But the hardest thing of all is to catch myself looking at a family photo, and realizing that I can't remember what my dad looks like. The picture looks like him, and yet....I can't really remember. Is that really what he looked like? I can't always see his face, I can't hear his voice. I know this doesn't mean that I'm forgetting him. It's simply that a long time has passed, and things don't stay clear and sharp when we don't see or hear them constantly. It's part of moving on, which we need to do.
And yet, a part of me still feels like I'm bad daughter because I can't always remember.
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