by Whitney
It is hard to believe that our Daddy has been gone three years today. Sometimes it seems so long ago, but other times the pain is so raw and the unanswered questions so compelling, that it could've been just yesterday when I got the call that my sister and I no longer had a Daddy.
As I reflect on the past three years, I still have so many regrets about how I handled Daddy's alcoholism and his behaviors. I think that sometimes, when you are so caught up in a bad situation, you don't always know the most appropriate way to respond. After years of abuse and disappointments, I had had enough and so I removed myself and my family from the situation. My little sister did the same. At that point it was not to "punish" our father; but rather nothing more than self perservation for both of us. But, had we known that he would die soon, I am confident that we would have handled things differently.
And then there is the matter of the way he died. I have told that story on this blog already, but needless to say, I have no doubt that foul play was involved. As time has passed and my sister and I have become stronger, we are now at a point that we are ready to do more investigation into just exactly what happened that day, three years ago. I feel that a trip to Broken Arrow is in our near future and although I do not feel that we will be able to prove what happened, perhaps just being where he last was will help us continue to heal. I also want to take Stormi to meet Mr. Jimmie and the men at the CAAIR Foundation.
There is still so much of Daddy's story to be told. We miss him every day. We long for just five minutes with him, one of his bone crushing hugs, or to hear some of his "sage" advice that we still laugh about today. You know, I would not even care if he was screaming at me, if it meant hearing his voice one more time. I hope he knows how much we love him. I really hope he knows.
It is hard to believe that our Daddy has been gone three years today. Sometimes it seems so long ago, but other times the pain is so raw and the unanswered questions so compelling, that it could've been just yesterday when I got the call that my sister and I no longer had a Daddy.
As I reflect on the past three years, I still have so many regrets about how I handled Daddy's alcoholism and his behaviors. I think that sometimes, when you are so caught up in a bad situation, you don't always know the most appropriate way to respond. After years of abuse and disappointments, I had had enough and so I removed myself and my family from the situation. My little sister did the same. At that point it was not to "punish" our father; but rather nothing more than self perservation for both of us. But, had we known that he would die soon, I am confident that we would have handled things differently.
And then there is the matter of the way he died. I have told that story on this blog already, but needless to say, I have no doubt that foul play was involved. As time has passed and my sister and I have become stronger, we are now at a point that we are ready to do more investigation into just exactly what happened that day, three years ago. I feel that a trip to Broken Arrow is in our near future and although I do not feel that we will be able to prove what happened, perhaps just being where he last was will help us continue to heal. I also want to take Stormi to meet Mr. Jimmie and the men at the CAAIR Foundation.
There is still so much of Daddy's story to be told. We miss him every day. We long for just five minutes with him, one of his bone crushing hugs, or to hear some of his "sage" advice that we still laugh about today. You know, I would not even care if he was screaming at me, if it meant hearing his voice one more time. I hope he knows how much we love him. I really hope he knows.