Moved House

My blog it moved to My Dad Has Cancer

Almost a Year

I had a dream the other night that Dad was alive and very sick with his lung cancer. It was very sad when I woke up. It felt so real. Last year at this time I remember I was starting to get ready for Katie's graduation and wondering if Dad would be alive for it. I remember thinking how I was going to have a funeral and a graduation close together. It was such a difficult time. I can't believe it's almost been a whole year. In someways it feels like a few weeks ago. I have to try and not remember the last 12 hours of his life because it is very painful to me. The disbelief of his final breath. The casual visiting of our family in his room that morning. too many too many sad things...

Grave Decorating

Mom and I went to decorate Dad's grave today. Put up spring flowers and took down the roses that mom called "winter". The wind was blowing so fiercely we wonder if the flowers will stay put in the vase. Mom stuffed them with some paper and we will hope for the best. We drove around then and looked at all the graves. I actually like our cematary. It's quite old with some really neat old tombstones.
Dad is gone now almost 9 months. I remember the awfulness of it all in waves. There was good too. Lots of good. I never spent so much time with Dad until the last two years of his life. I'm glad we were able to keep Dad at home. It was hard, but why must everything be easy.

Getting along

Been missing Dad lately. We found a bunch of old pictures the other day. Pics of Mom and Dads wedding, Dad at the grocery store sale, Moms brothers and sisters and Mother in the front lawn of grandmas house. Brought back a flood of memories. Sometimes it's just easier to get through he days by being superficial.

Today Would Have Been My Dad's 73 Birthday

It's a sad day really. I think of Dad, gone for 7 months now and I can't believe it. Again, it seems like a different world, a different time, place. I cried last night and felt sad. Mark's dad died of lung cancer too. Mark was only 19 and I never got to meet his dad. I worry about my children. Will they be "prone" to lung cancer? Alec has already had a "cyst" removed twice from his lower leg at the growth plate, what does that mean for him? Katie, my oldest, is smoking. I am sick about it. So sick. So very very sick. I don't know what to do. She is almost 19, in college. She has to be responsible for her own actions. She is not a stupid girl. I have talked and talked and talked about lung cancer and smoking forever. She saw her grandpa shrink slowly every day and die of lung cancer. She smokes. god it hurts to think of it.,,

Christmas Coming

Thanksgiving gone and already Christmas in few days. Time is flying by. I have been re-reading a book that is about a woman who takes care of her dad who is dying of lung cancer. I hate it, yet I read it. Sounds true to me. Hard to take and hard to put down. In some ways it feels good to know that other people have gone through the same experiences as you have. Some comfort in that. A week ago or so, Mom made a Christmas tree for Dad's grave and we took it to the cemetary. It fits right over the vase. We also took a greenery type deer and put him there too. It's so hard to believe that Dad is dead. I have been trying to block out thoughts of his sickness because it is hard to think of him like that now. It makes me feel so very very sad. In fact I can't really write anymore now.

Four Months Gone Already

I keep thinking about Dad and when he died. The hospital room that day, the way he "talked" with his eyes until the very end. I keep remembering the last breath he took. I can't help it and I hate to think of it and I wish I could think of other things. Better things.
Not long after Dad died Mark and I thought we would go fishing at the creek. I went into Mom and Dads garage to get Dad's tackle box. I picked it up, opened it up and my mouth dropped open. Inside were a jillion cigarette butts. Neatly packed on top of his lures. In fact it looked like they belonged there. Obviously he hadn't quit smoking. I guess I knew that...deep inside I knew it. I shook my head and Mark and Mom stood there with their mouths dropped open. I felt such a...dismay...it seems like I was always telling my Dad not to smoke when I was a little girl. I hated the smell...although sometimes now I like the slight whiff of a cigarette burning... I don't smoke...can't stand it...I remember thinking...I wonder when he will die of cancer back when I was little.
terrible thoughts
Mom and I picked out a headstone. There is a fishing scene on the back. The only thing it needs is a cigarette and the picture would look like him.
Wish I could sleep