I totally skipped November.
The leaves changed, the weather changed, my life changed.
My father, bless his heart, passed away. The last thing he ever said to me was, "Where are you living now?" because he couldn't remember and quite possibly, couldn't remember me. It's a very strange thing, losing a parent. You think about it occasionally but until it becomes a reality, you never really know how you will react.
Some days you will be fine--other days you will be a wreck. Some days I can think of my dad and smile, others I will think about him in his garden, picking string beans with my son, and I will fall apart. I was Christmas shopping the other day and thought, "What am I going to get Dad?" It was always my yearly dilemma, what to buy my father, an Archie Bunker-ish sort who was never overly excited about gifts unless you really got lucky and hit the nail on the head. One year I bought him a large, hardbound copy of a World War II book and he was truly touched, more so than I'd ever seen him Christmas morning. I felt pangs of guilt, as I had seen the book marked down, knew my dad liked war movies, and thought, "I can't think of anything else. Maybe he'll like this."
As I looked at the racks of merchandise in the stores the other day, decorations and holiday music all around me, I thought how lucky I was to even have a dad, much less a dad for 44 years. Some people don't get to have a dad for even 1 day. Some people live their lives thinking their dads are out there but don't care about them and they never see them. This Christmas will be the first Christmas of my life that I don't have my big, strong dad out there in the world, sitting in his favorite recliner, watching college football and complaining about how commercial and expensive Christmas is.
The world--and my life--is emptier without him.
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