Two years ago...

Two years ago...I was in Chicago, hubby had a pricing conference there..we had driven down three days previous. I love Chicago....eldest daughter went to college there, so for five years we regularly went there...I remember when she graduated and moved back home, being somewhat disappointed that I didn't know when I'd ever get back to Chicago. Hubby had arranged that we'd spend a couple of nights in a hotel in the heart of Chicago, (the conference itself was at a hotel by the airport) to finish off our little get away.....every day I was in contact with my sister at home...you see, my dad had been in the hospital for six weeks....he went in due to a complication from his diabetes, ended up contracting several nasty hospital bacterias...Norwalk, C dificile, VRE, the one caused him to have a heart attack....but everyone encouraged me to go....even my dad....he seemed to be slowly gaining the week I was away....until the day the conference was over...we had just moved from one hotel to the other and were out walking down those wonderful streets by the river...when the first text from my sister came....dad was having some problems...by the third or fourth text, hubby and I had decided that we'd leave first thing in the morning....by early evening, it was too late...I wordlessly handed my phone to hubby, with trembling running thru me ,when the final text came thru from sister...'call me' .

When you're a little girl, you develop a different attachment to your dad than you do your mom. When I was little, I went thru many surgeries.....surgeries that had to take place at Sick Children's hospital in Toronto.....about an hour and a half drive from home. I remember well my dad, working every morning, then taking his holidays to take the afternoons to drive to Toronto every day, so him and my mom could see me....he only got two weeks holidays every year...but he willingly gave them up...for me...

My dad would sit and help me with my homework...he was the one who came when I was sick, in the night...and he was the one who told me from his hospital bed 'you have amazed your mom and me by all that you do'....i was so pleased....praise was not often given in our family...

A girl develops her security thru her dad....I see it in my daughters with my hubby....the last three weeks my hubby has been very ill...my daughters have all reacted differently to seeing their dad not his usual self...but I know that they look to him for their security too....when they were younger, two of them needed surgery and each time they chose their dad to walk them into the operating room...to hold their hand til they were put to sleep....hubby was never one of those warm cuddly dads when the kids were growing up (except when they were babies, he LOVES the babies and would sit and rock them in the middle of the night)....he would fall asleep holding them, they would cuddle into his soft chest and belly and be content...but as they were growing, they would lock horns...each and everyone of them....hubby likes things done a certain way ( he's an accountant!) kids never cared about doing things in a certain way......so, one would be surprised that the kids would turn to him for their security in times of uncertainty....but they did...and when he's been sick these last few weeks, I've seen that look in their eyes, that uncertainty, that slight tremble of panic that says...he can't be sick...he's dad!

When my dad left me, two years ago today...of course I wasn't the only one he left...I don't want to sound self centered here,...but it was a day of despair...not that he was in heaven...oh no, I knew that it was so much better for him...after all he'd been in terrible pain for a number of years, his dialysis wasn't working very well, he was tired and worn out...now he was walking in heaven without a twinge...he was chatting with loved ones gone before, he was walking with Jesus. No, I wasn't sorry he was there, but I was in despair that he wasn't here....I still miss him terribly...not a day goes by that I don't look heavenward...I say, 'hi dad'.....and when the trials and tribulations of this world cause me to say to myself...oh dad, I'll be so glad when I see you again and you look at me and say...'hi Marie, I've been waiting for you, I've missed you too.' Oh, what a beautiful day that will be.


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