Two years

It's been two years since my dad died. Two years today.

I went through the day yesterday being sad and thinking about how I should go out to the cemetary until I talked to Dennis who said, "He died on the 15th, Amy."

Actually, if you remember what happened, he had his stroke on the 14th and died in the early-morning hours of the 15th. Which means two days of sadness each year.

OK, I just read all those entries from that time period and now I'm sadder than ever.

My friend Candee makes these awesome quilts out of denim, and I've been salivating over them for years. When my dad died and I inherited the red Chicago Fire Department sweatshirt that I'd given him and that he wore constantly, I asked her if she'd make me one of her quilts with my dad's sweatshirt worked in there somehow.

It took her a long time, but oh my dear lord was it worth the wait. These pictures don't do it justice...it is heavy and soft and is backed by red flannel and it's just heavenly. HEAVENLY.

I am just overwhelmed and touched and generally blown away by this creation. Candee is a saint, and I love her to death.

My dad would have loved spending the day at my cousin Jen's house with the family today, watching the Bears lose to whoever they were playing against. He would have also enjoyed that for an hour after the game, we watched someone's video of the Bears winning the 1985 Super Bowl which was put on as a joke but then was watched mournfully but attentively by everyone in the room.

I still dream about him, that he's alive and that he's joking around with me, asking me about my life, and enjoying watching Quinn grow into a little girl.

I am still not quite convinced that he's never coming back.

DEATH IS NOTHING AT ALL
Henry Scott Holland 1847 -1918

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away into the next room,
I am I and you are you;
Whatever we were to each other, That we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used,
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we shared together.
Let my name ever be the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant,
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the
corner.
All is well.

Posted by Amy at January 15, 2006 09:54 PM