The Hardest thing

As some of you know, recently, my father passed away. I decided to blog about because I think I am still in shock. I don't think I have really allowed myself to deal with this...I think because there are so many emotions.

For the past several years, my father battled alcoholism. And it finally got the best of him.

As much as he did wrong, he was still my father. I think that I am grieving what will never be, instead of the actual loss of him. If that makes since. I know he is in heaven, and for the first time in his life I truly believe the things that haunted him on this earth, he is finally free of. He spent most of his life running and I am glad he is at peace now!

However it is a hard ball to swallow, knowing how desperately he needed to be saved (from his addictions) and yet for whatever reason, you could not save him. Oh, how we tried. We found every treatment out there you could find, and just when we thought he was going to actually kick it, he wouldn't just back slide, he would fall hard. I remember the time I went to see him in the hospital lying there, hanging on for life...knowing he was dying from self inflicting wounds. Oh it was so hard to watch. I just wanted to shake him real hard and ask him why are you doing this to yourself, why are you doing this to us!! Watching someone slowly kill themselves, leaves you limp less.

My sister called me saying she had not hared from him in a few days, so she thought she should go check on him, and when she did, she found him dead on the floor. She called me, and you know what, I could not even speak.

The hardest thing of it all, was going to the funeral home, to pick up my father's remains in this tiny box. In this box, was a man, who sometimes I felt like I did not even know. Yet, in this box is your daddy, the man who when he was able to kick the habit, had a heart of gold. Yet in this box is a man who when you got scared at camp, drove all the way to pick you up, still you know so little about his life. Yet, in this box is a man who drove you to school everyday, feed you and clothed you, still he feels like a stranger. Ye in this box is a man, who without him my life, and my daughter's life would not exists, still you feel this huge gap. Yet in this box, is a man who took you to church, and with out him, you may not have your eternal salvation, still this man had salvation, but allowed his problems to eat a way at him. Yet in this box, is a man whom you dearly loved and only wanted the best for, but he is a man who would not be saved.

Oh my dearest dad, how I love you, and so wanted our time on this earth to be different...

My sister and I returned his ashes to the ground (river) together, and watching them float away was like a big empty hole in your life float away with him.

So in closing I will say that I wish the beer adds would run an add of the picture that will run in my sisters head for the rest of her life. Instead, all we see in the beer or alcohol commercials, is people who are having the time of their life, and sending a message to you and me, that with out, you can't have a good time.

I say hog wash to them.