first

My Dad died, everywhere I go this is what I want to say, I just want to blurt it out, so I am saying it here in my notebook, this diary of life. My Dad died, he died May 15, 2008.

It was horrible, it was tragic and I'm hurting, he didn't hear the Doctor tell him, I told him. I put my hand on his chest, as close to his heart as I could looked deep into his being and said it. He almost cried, I almost cried.

My Mom is doing pretty well, from what she tells us how she engaging life. People ask me how she's doing, they're caring, kind. I'm not always doing well, gripped by overwhelming grief. I'm told the first year is the hardest, the first Father's Day, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas...

My brother and I cared for Dad at my Mom and Dad's home, for his last 8 weeks. It started months before that, it was a long hard road, but so quick looking back, because at one point we thought we won. When I went back home, to my home after the wake, I went to work in the garden, in the garden I wept, I wept deep down through. I felt my Dad everywhere, I felt him in the dirt, in the trees and plants, in the air and silence all around me. My Dad was a farmer in his heart in his soul. I miss my Dad. I really love being in the garden.