180 days

Six months can be so very long and yet it can go in a blink of an eye. In the last six months I have learned that for so long I have taken most everything in my life for granted. On the one hand I had little faith in most things, but on the other hand I just assumed that life would continue day to day as it had for so long. On June 20th when my father didn’t come home or call to tell us that he was on his way, I found myself on the phone with the emergency room staff while I tried to describe to the nurse what I thought he was wearing while he was out for a bike ride. I realized something was seriously wrong when the nurse began asking me if my father wore a head band, wore long or short riding pants, used a Camel Back water supply. All of the questions were in the past tense when the nurse asked them. When I voiced my concern and asked to please speak with my father, the nurse said that was not a possibility and that she needed to speak with my mother.
It never occured to me that my father was doing anything other than demanding that the hospital staff unhook his IV and let him collect his bike to go home. Afterall, he knew my mother and I were at home waiting for him. I never for a moment considered that he was already just a body and sitting on a cold shelf somewhere in the bowels of the hospital.
Since that night I have learned that nothing is stable. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is truly what it seems to be. There is always a catch, always another way to look at things, always the need to consider a back up plan. I have learned the true meaning of the deepest heart ache imaginable. I have learned that grief can actually bring you the joy of a happy memory, only to kick you in the ass in the next moment and leave you curled in a fetal ball of pain. I have learned that this life is but a blink. One breath in can be the last one we ever have. So I am trying to actively understand those breaths. I am trying to enjoy them and find wonder in the feeling of my chest moving in and out. I am also trying to reconcile myself with the fact that my father isn’t coming back, not tonight. Not for his birthday that is in three days. Not ever. I don’t get it and it leaves me devestated every damn day. He was a good man who was doing such good things. He was sending the bad guys to prison. He was helping moms support their children. He was helping people to stay off drugs, out of prison and with their families.
During the last six months, I have not even begun to understand why he had to go. But I look at his life and realize that he hid from very few things. And those he did hide from, he tried so hard to make amends for in other areas of his life. My father enjoyed so many aspects of his life. When viewed in the big pitcure, 65 1/2 years is not huge, but I believe he used his time wisely. I wish there would have been much more time here with us. But if there is one thing I have learned in the last six months, it is that we are but human and we don’t control eveything. I miss him. Everyday I miss him and wish he was here. I wish I could talk to him about the good things and the things that are vexing me. I do talk to him, wherever he is, and sometimes I almost feel a whisper of his wisdom. But I wish he could hug me and that I could feel that safety that I have only ever felt in his embrace.
There is a part of me that hopes he will come back in another six months. The rational part of me knows that is not possible. But 180 days is simply not enough time to accept that fact.