Two Things.

Before I break into the 22 days since Daddy died, let me just say that I am totally freaking out right now and trying not to. See the Architect texts me every night... starting around 8 and going until pumpkin hour when he falls asleep. Every single night. Until this night. This very one right now where I am freaking out. I'm not freaking out because I think he might not like me anymore. I'm freaking out because I am scared that he is dead too. Yep. Sounds ridiculous. But I am terrified that he is dead. The same thing happened when it took Bryce two whole days to get back to me. Bryce is fine. He told me. But now, I am searching news sites making sure Architect is still alive too. I can't find anything. I'm trying to tell myself that God is not out to get me with the death. All of this is just life, just Him bringing home his people... these years culminating with my father are not His attempt to tell me that I am just the omen of death.

Now on to the things that will make me sound only slightly less ridiculous...

I still have a hard time sleeping through the night. My nightmares aren't the same anymore though. They used to be about people I love dying or scary monsters or the Apocolypse and Christ's return... but now they are about having enough food for the funeral, or not being able to take care of my family well enough, or once that Daddy was knocking and I couldn't get to him. They are riddled with stressful things. They are harder to shake off but less terrifying... more scary, less terrifying.

I am still upset that they wouldn't let me see him and hold his hand before they bagged up his body. I am so hurt about that. They said it would freak me out to much, that I wouldn't want to remember him that way... but I remember him bleeding from the head, the neck... I remember him so beat up and gross because of some trip and fall when he was too drunk to walk straight. I held his hand then... I wanted to hold his hand when he died. It was what I did. But they wouldn't let me and I didn't know how to push it. So I gave it up and just tried to hold his hand through the black plastic bag.

I worry that I'm not always super sad. In fact most of the time I'm just A-ok. But then I break down and cry wildly. Like at the wedding I was bartending last week when the father of the bride walked her down the aisle. Or driving in the car past the house I grew up in where I have the most memories of him. And... always always always the Beatles.

I am worried about Thanksgiving Dinner and Christmas. and I can't remember the recipe for Hot Cross Buns which is the first pastry he taught me to make.

He may not have taken care of me but he sure did teach me to take care of everyone else. and I'm scared that I won't be able to without him here to tell me what to do next.