bye dad Archives -

Something my dad constantly, as in every single morning, told me as he was waking me up for school and as I struggled to want to even be alive. And despite how frustrated I made him, he never yelled or got overly mad.

But this is something that has stuck with me my whole life.

It might had contributed to what I call my White Rabbit Syndrome where I feel like I’m constantly racing against time. WHO KNOWS.

Today marks one year since my dad passed away after a 8 year battle with Cancer. Whew, counting that blew my mind. While death from Cancer is never a positive outcome, obviously, he was lucky to had lived that long. My dad had his own anxieties that showed up when I was really young. He was obsessed with the fact that he was dying long before he was even diagnosed with Cancer and that was hard to deal with since he’d use it as a reason against an argument or that “I don’t feel good, I might be dying, I don’t know,” I almost feel like being diagnosed brought him some sort of weird anxiety relief.

And at first, it didn’t see so bad. He had radiation therapy and he was constantly sick but it wasn’t anything that seemed like it would disrupt how our lives were normally lived. So I’ll admit that for the first few years it was hard to imagine there was Cancer because nothing really changed. He wasn’t losing hair or weight or anything. A year after he was diagnosed I got my job back at Disney World so in 2013 I moved back to Florida. We came back to visit that December. In October it was my dad who called and told me that my dog passed away. So to be there without him that year was really hard for me.

I never went back after that. I never saw my dad after that.

And that will always be the hardest thing to swallow.

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It’s officially been a year since the last time my dad called.

A year since the last time I heard his voice.

And it’s so hard to write this. I feel like my chest is going to cave in. The phone call was only about 4 mins long. I still have the call logged on my phone and I make sure it doesn’t get pushed off.

I use to get so annoyed when my dad called. Cause he’d always say the same thing. But he did also always ask how I was doing, I just hated telling him if something was wrong cause he was a massive worrier. I firmly believe if he was still here during this pandemic he would lose his shit. So I would dread picking up the phone.

And of course now that he’s gone I regret every single time I didn’t want to pick up the phone.

The thing about his passing is that from where I am it looked like it was something that happened overnight. My dad was constantly telling me he was “fine, just tired.” and suddenly he wasn’t okay and a few days later he was gone. Just like that. To my mom and brother it wasn’t overnight, but they were there with him. I wasn’t able to go to his funeral cause I had no idea he was having one until the day of.

My dad knows flying is painful for me (doesn’t stop me from flying and wouldn’t had stopped me from going to his funeral had I known about it) and that Tums was too small to fly yet. He was always worried that Tums might have what I have but tbh I messed up my own tissues.

Long story short: I stuck a peanut up my nose too far (my mom is an RN and I wouldn’t eat a lot as a kid and she said if I didn’t start eating she was going to feed me through my nose like her patients. She failed to mention WITH A TUBE.) so my mom had to take me to the hospital where they had to remove it. And in the process I had somehow messed up some tissue in that area. I was suppose to have surgery to fix it as a kid but that never happened. It just feels like my left ear specifically is going to burst out of my head when the plane lands, no biggie. Sometimes I can manage to “keep pressure out of it” and it won’t hurt as bad when the plane lands… but you know what, this is meant for another blog post.

So that’s why I wasn’t told about his funeral; because he didn’t want me or Tums to have to deal with that. But in exchange, I still haven’t said my goodbye’s. I still haven’t come to terms with the fact he’s gone and sometimes I’ll even forget. And think it’s been awhile since I texted him a photo of Tums (he LOVED getting photos and videos of Tums every single day); and I’ll remember he’s gone and it’s like that day all over again.

I’m seriously surprised I haven’t burst into tears yet writing this.

His death anniversary is coming up and I honestly don’t know how I’m not gonna lose my shit that day. August suddenly has become really really hard.

Sorry there isn’t any photos or anything, I just really needed to write.