Been awhile

Things have been going well. I'm so very thankful for the good fortune that has come my way in the months since my Dad passed away. It was eight months on the 11th. I really can't believe how quickly time has gone by.

I've been extremely fortunate and I will do my very best to carry on with what has been granted to me since January.

Opening for Aerosmith, recording a single for the "Well Oiled" compilation CD, working from home as a graphic designer...these are all dreamlike things. I'm so eternally thankful for the good fortune, and I do not take it for granted. I'm not the type to be superstitious, but if I were...I would say that my Dad is looking out for me and sending these gifts my way. I'm happy to be observant enough to have accepted them.

I really didn't see myself being where I am today eight months ago. As the summer goes by, I have little flashes of last summer. My Dad would call me every day to see how things were going, I miss that. I took him to the hospital for his transfusions once or twice and then we had lunch together...nothing fancy, just Wendy's...and I'm missing that too. In the early part of the summer last year, I drove him to the bank so he could withdraw the money to pay for his pre-planned funeral expenses. I remember talking to him, watching him doing this and wondering how he must feel...wondering what he must have been thinking.

Well, that's in the past now. I tried my best to grow up and be a better son. I only hope that I did. It's strange how these memories come flooding back sometimes...especially the last two nights he was alive. I can still hear him gasping for breath on the night I stayed over night with him in the hospital, he was so scared...looking back on it, I don't think I even realized how scared he must have been...or what he must have been going through. What panic and fear he must have felt. I've lost my breath a few times due to asthma when I was younger, but I'm sure it was nothing like what he felt.

Then I remember the next night, he was unconscious...I went home to sleep...and the next morning, I watched him die. I watched him die. It's almost like it still isn't truly registering...I can type the words, and I can see his face in those last moments...but it seems so unreal, despite the fact that I saw it happen. I held his hand and we stared at each other, eye to eye, and he left. It's just so easy to leave this world sometimes...we're so fragile. I can't go back in time and experience him again. I just have all these shadows of memories, where I can hear and see him alive again.

I don't know. I'm tired. It's late and I'm rambling. I should probably write here more often. I think there is still a lot on my mind.

Take care all.