Daddy, I miss you so much!

Originally written on 11/9/09

Toward the end of the day is the time when my thoughts of Daddy are the strongest. I don’t know why that is, unless it’s the time when I feel the loneliest. Tonight during the AA meeting my feelings were the strongest they’ve been in several days.


Daddy had never been to Calvin and Sherri’s house, but it was like I could almost see him sitting beside me on the couch. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I could “feel” his presence there. As I write this now, I “feel” him near me, but not like it was earlier.

I’m not saying this is anything mystical, but I think it’s just me wanting him to be near me again. I miss him so much and he’s only been gone a little over two weeks. How much more will I miss him in the days to come? I never, ever want to stop missing him.

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to talk to him several times the day he died. That morning he seemed to be so happy go lucky. There didn’t appear to be anything bothering him, except maybe his back. He didn’t even get upset when I told him the bank made a mistake and put his check in my account.

I thought that was both funny and ironic. In the past when it was my responsibility to see that his check was deposited, a lot of times I would be late taking care of it. As a result, there would be months when no deposit showed up on his bank statement. He would get upset and think I was keeping his checks for myself. Even after I showed him the statements where there were two deposits, he still didn’t seem to understand that I always put his checks in the bank.

Then just two days before he left us, he took his check to the bank and it was mistakenly put into my account. I discovered what had happened that Friday morning. I called to tell him what happened and that I was going to take care of it. It didn’t seem to bother him a bit. We discussed it a few minutes and he finally said “oh well”. My reply was “Oh, really? Does that mean you don’t care if I keep it?” I don’t think he knew what to say about that. I just laughed and said I was joking. I think Daddy laughed, too.

It’s not surprising that I have regrets when I think about Daddy. There are things that I wished I had done with him. I am glad that I had been able to take him out to eat at least once before he left us. There should have been many more times besides that.

Now, there are things that I’ll never be able to do with him. Such as invite him to my apartment for lunch. Ask him to spend the night with me. He would’ve loved either one of those. I can’t even remember the last time he was in my apartment. He never got to watch a movie with me on my new TV.

Then there were my intentions to do something like a life story about him. I had a list of questions that would have documented his life from the time he was a boy until now. That project will never be done now. I think he would’ve enjoyed that, too.

But don’t I think that Daddy enjoyed talking to me several times that Friday? I believe he did that morning and I would like to think he found some kind of comfort in talking to me that afternoon when he was in such pain.

I only wish that I had known what was causing some of his pain in his stomach. I wish that I could’ve been there with him when he took his last breath. I would have loved to have held his hand, giving him what comfort that I could. I wonder what kind of pain he felt up until the end?

But there’s something else that I keep thinking about. It might have been the very last time that I talked to him at 4:05PM. He said that he wanted me to get back in church. Not for him, but for my sake. I think he wanted me to promise him that I would. I reluctantly said that I would think about it. When I said that I loved him, he replied in a way that he usually did. He said, “I love you with the love of Jesus.”

So, was Daddy really alone when he took his last breath? Could Jesus really have been there holding his hand, giving Daddy comfort that no one on earth could’ve given him? I want to believe when his time was over the angels escorted him to Heaven.

Daddy, I miss you so much!