Daddy's Girl

Surprise! Another  post so soon you ask?

Whelp, my OT thinks getting out of the house is imperative for my mental  and emotional success or just enough to keep me from throwing in the towel. Either way it gives my unemployed ass a chance to brush my teeth, wear something other than my crusty sweats and interact with other humans.

It's this 'humaning' I still struggle with especially when my body refuses to cooperate and I'm left looking like some feral housewife who's been locked inside the depths of Hell...or at least burdened with 10 loads of laundry and reruns of daytime T.V.   

And while I wish I could blame it all on the disease, part of me can concede that this chapter of my story started well before I started losing my bowels and hair.  This chapter, truth be told, began as a journey of grief.  Along the way I just added a few more pit stops.  Because why not?

I woke today with a crushing weight on my chest and as I lay in the darkness, I felt an overwhelming sense of emptiness.    Not a physical magnesium citrate emptiness, but a hollow space where my emotions used to reside.

Mental health is a taboo subject and we tend to joke and jest, throwing the word 'crazy' around as if we even know what it means.  Don't believe me? For one day make a note of how many times you might use this phrase or expression. How many of these people are actually crazy? And what makes one certifiable enough to be called crazy?

I could talk for hours on this subject, but no one wants to listen and the $80 a session to find someone feels forced.  So forgive me if this isn't something you want to discuss, but it's something I can't escape and I need to find out why. Or at the very least find a way to fill that hole I have left gaping.

It has been over 3 years since my dad died.  And everyday his absence is felt, seen.  In the faces of my children, the empty chair at the table and my mother's heart.   I can't escape it.  

Nor can I escape the last words we spoke.   I go back to that moment over and over, dissecting every second, frame by frame, trying to keep it from slipping away. It terrifies me that I will one day have difficulty remembering him.   Never mind the day I don't know who I am.   

I stood in the doorway, both kids huddled at my side, frightened by his deteriorating appearance, but more terrified by the reality that he would leave us soon. Every single moment we could spare, we spent at his side and that final night was no different.  Reluctant to leave, at 1:00 am I loaded my babies  in the car to give my mother the time she needed with him and to recharge.

I remember exactly what I was wearing, the smell of his pipe lingering in the hall, my girl's hand tightly clutching her brother's, who still struggled with letting him go. 

I called out to the bed " we love you, old man.  We will be back in the morning to terrorize you.  Love ya'".  He raised his arm which took all the strength he could muster, waved us on with an almost inaudible 'Love youuuuuuu....".   

His voice faded as his body weakened, and I trooped out with my crew in tow.   

Hours later he took his final breath with my mother at his side.    The part that makes this even more difficult for me is three days prior to his death, he caught me off-guard with a call at my office.   

It was 11:34 am on a Wednesday and I had just come back from refilling my coffee mug when our receptionist buzzed me.  With a quick 'your father is on the line', I was thrown through a loop.    My mother was making all the necessary arrangements to bring him home while a friend kept him company in ICU at MDAnderson.    Surely she was mistaken.  He was in no condition to be making phones.

She wasn't.  As I picked up the line, I heard his rattling cough and distinct "Big John" chuckle we have all grown to love.   I demanded to know why he was calling me.  Didn't he know he was supposed to be resting and saving his strength?

He told me that he could do whatever he damned well pleased in true John-fashion, and proceeded to crush my heart. 

I stood behind my desk, unable to get my legs to cooperate, as he commended me for all my accomplishments and failures.  He thanked me for allowing him to become a father and grandfather.  He thanked me for all the times I let him be a part of my life even when I fought and resisted.  He thanked me for making him proud.  

As I began to resemble Rocky Raccoon, I jokingly jested that he was fucking up my makeup and I was at work.  With a loud and audible guffaw, he stated his job was done and the line went dead.

I stood there, perplexed, angry, grateful and feeling like a complete and utter shit-heel.  

As I sunk into my chair, I struggled to wipe away the tears and compose myself.   

I wish I had known that was the last full conversation I would have with him.  I would tell him how much I didn't deserve his love.  How much I owed him for choosing us as his daughters and my mother as his wife. He gave us our family back.  I owed him a debt of gratitude for the life he so selflessly gave us all.  He told me I made him proud as a mother and parent.  I should have told him a thousand times how proud I was to call him Dad.  He believed in us when no one else did, and showed me for the first time in my life not just how a man should treat a woman, but how people should treat others. 

I wish I could tell him that I am nothing to be proud of and that my shortcomings will always outweigh and outshine my accomplishments.   I mean, it's a go-big-or-go-home mentality I live by. And that's ok.  

I wish I had told him...so much.  I will regret this to the day I die.

Many don't know this, but he had always been a part of my life long before he became my father. In fact he was the second person to hold me following my birth. There is a running family joke that even though we never shared DNA, I am my father's daughter.

And to that I call bullshit.   He was so much better than I ever will be.   

He was the compass this family needed and without him we have absolutely no direction.   He gave us the most beautiful 16 years and would have given everything to give us another 16.

And I lie awake night after night, year after year, and the hole in my chest, that hollowness keeps getting bigger and bigger.    The bond I have with my mother is unbreakable; she is one of my best friends.  I cannot imagine life without her, and don't want to. 

But the relationship he gave me was something I never thought I needed, much less wanted.

I don't know why I am writing this.  The journey of grief and loss is endless.  There will never be an end in sight, and I have to acknowledge this is part of life.  No one is immune to it.  We know this. 

But it doesn't mean to I have to accept it.   And today as I lay in the dark, the only sound my breathing labored as the tears become uncontrollable, I am rejecting it. 

Fuck death and everything it robs us of.  Fuck the idea that we move on, get over it or even learn to cope.

Because some of us never will.  Some of us are left hollow and lost. Fighting to find some reason to keep on going.  

My reason?  I want to continue to make him proud. 

Even if takes an entire lifetime. 

Because that emptiness I feel, that crushing weight I feel every night?

It's a broken heart.   And if I don't find a way to mend it, I will drive a fucking harpoon through it.

I haven't learned how to live without him and quite frankly, I don't know if I ever will.

But I will be damned if I am going to spend my life crying in the dark.

He wouldn't have wanted that.  Besides, I am fucking up my makeup again. 

A father's love for his son and the lesson he taught me

Fear.   It can be crippling and life altering if you allow it to become debilitating.   We all have the capacity to fear something. Unless you're a sociopath.  Then it's you that is feared.

That fear can be something as small and insignificant as filing your taxes or skydiving. It can also be that sweat-inducing pounding in your chest when you apply for a new job or face foreclosure.

Fear is fear.  Unless its that fear of losing someone.  And nothing is worse than that except said loss being a child.   This isn't to negate or invalidate the importance of any loss.  I don't want to argue of the semantics of grief and how one death is more significant than another.  All loss sucks.  It's fucking impossible to escape it as it's part of this shit-show we call life.

We know to expect it but we are never prepared for it.

But in all seriousness, I have experienced varying degrees of loss over the last 4 years and nothing compared to the death of my father save for our two babies.  And I deemed myself an expert, a connoisseur of the grieving process, dolling out sage words of wisdom and tips to others who turned to me for help or a listening ear.

Until I attended a performance art piece entitled 'Guac: My Son, My Hero' by Manuel Oliver.

Anything I thought I knew about grief, loss and fucking pain went out the window.  In that moment as I sat in the front row, I was given a stark look into the reality of what it means to lose a living child especially to an act of violence.

See, Joaquin 'Guac' Oliver was one of the 17 Parkland shooting victims.

Was isn't the right word because it isn't past-tense.  No amount of days or years will ever erase the fact that a 19 year old mentally unstable man was able to rob 17 individuals of their futures, hopes and dreams in the span of 7 short minutes.


This isn't going to be a rehashing on the background of this catastrophic event.  The shooter doesn't deserve the print, the small amount of you who will read this know the case or at least how to use Google, and this isn't a rambling about gun violence. 

Let's just say legislation won't change, but my 9 year old has monthly active shooter drills.

And I am not ok with that.  Even if you are.

That sums up where I stand.  I can say this as a mentally unstable person and previous gun owner.


No,  this is Joaquin's story told through his father who has been able to lend his voice when his son's was silenced too soon.  A man who was willing to expose the raw and ugly wounds he carried with his grief if it will change one life.

Because the love for his son could not be silenced by the shooter's gun.

This is the story of a budding activist, artist with an affinity for basketball, a fondness for Slash and his killer guitar riffs, and a untainted passion for life.  As I sat there with those 60 other strangers, I didn't know what lay in store for me.  When purchasing the tickets, I knew this was an interactive performance piece which warned of triggers or elements that may be found disturbing or upsetting.


This disclaimer was plastered on the door as we filed into our seats and I found it odd that people might actually not attend because of the content.  When did we become so afraid of reality, we choose not to face it?  What does that leave for us?  Some false sense of security.  Which is probably great for you.   As long as nothing real ever happens.

This show was especially poignant on a day when the world woke to the loss of a sports legend and his 13 year old daughter who showed promise in following in his steps and carrying on his legacy.

Another loss of a child.

In that 90 minute show, I discovered that not only did I not know the varying degrees and depths grief can bring, but what it means to bury your child.   There is a post I wrote sometime ago concerning my depression and grief over both miscarriages and I feel and see too numerous a friend traveling down the same path.  Its brutal.    The time and effort I have spent mourning a "what-if" of a possible life is nothing compared to the harsh and brutal reality of living without a "has-been".

I wish I had a crystal ball sometimes to see what would have been if both embryos had survived.  Would they have been 2 more boys ? Would I finally have one child who looks like me?  Daycare or au pair? Breast or bottle?  These questions and thoughts still keep me awake at night. Especially the painful, sleepless ones.

But I rest easy in the luxury of having no face to put to the madness.   I wake up secure in the knowledge that while these feelings exist, I am able to push them further and further away because it's nothing more than a fleeting glimpse into the life I could have had and didn't. And the reality of the life I am able to live now is beautiful.  And that comforts me and quiets those fears.

But what if you had more than a glimpse? What if you have the answers to those questions? What if you had that life?

What if you had 17 glorious years of laughter, tears, countless games and family holidays? What if you had 17 beautiful years of friendship, secrets and dreams?  A face, a name, a heartbeat to put to those questions.

And suddenly its stolen away.  What is left?   As I glanced around the audience, the glistening and stained cheeks shining under the dimmed lights, I saw it.

Love.  That's what is left.  Love.  Because no amount of fear, anger, grief, sorrow or violence can take that away.

Love.  One father's love for his son.

Love.  One mother's love for her son.

Love.  One stranger's love for another stranger.

Love.  One individual's ability to love themselves.

Love.   Unconditional, unbridled love filled that room and flowed over us all.

There is so much more I wish I could articulate, but for now I encourage, plead with you to educate yourself on this case and the work of the Oliver family with their foundation, Change the Ref.   If you live in a city where this show is playing, please purchase a ticket. Check out all the amazing things they are doing to not only remember their son and his life, but change legislation. https://changetheref.org/


All I know is that I thought I knew true fear.  And I don't and probably never will.

But I know that no amount of fear can change my ability to love and be loved.



And the world needs more of this.