Things Fall apart...

If I had a nickel for every post that started out with life and ended in death, I would be the richest girl in the world.... or I'd at least have enough money to buy myself a diet coke.

I will say all the right things everywhere else. I will be perfect everywhere else. I will keep it together for everyone else. But here, now, with you, I'm going to let it go.

My dad is dead.

I am so shaken and lost. I don't even know how to process this. I really thought he was going to live forever and continue to be my responsibility forever. I thought that this would be my life long burden. I was ready for that.

I knew that there was a relatively low chance of him living 5 years past his surgery. I knew that he really had to quit drinking in order to live a full life. I have been watching him shrink away to practically nothing for over a year. I knew all that... but I thought he would be like a twinkie... well preserved and while not healthy not something that would kill you either.

But then boom like a flash of light and a crack of the universe he was not. He ceased. He ended. He left. Again.

I have thought forever that my father wouldn't live to walk me down the aisle. The two times I've been close to marriage, I've had to rearrange my childhood wedding plans to fit him in because he was never a factor, never supposed to make it. Now it seems so wrong that he actually won't be there.

I hate planning this funeral. I hate it so much. I don't want anyone else to do it. I want to do it all. But I hate it.

I may have been overwhelmed by my father for many years. Angry at him for a few. But it was an honor to care for him, to fight for his life, and to give all I had to be here with him. I would do it again. And better.

I love you, Daddy. I miss you too much already.