A Big Thank-You

As you can imagine, the last week has been a difficult one. I spent Tuesday just sitting at home watching tv and trying to make sense of everything. My sister spent the day with my stepmom helping to get things organized for my dad's memorial service on Saturday. On Wednesday we were both with her, helping out and running errands. It helped to stay busy. Thursday was my last day off work. I went out for a while and tried to keep my mind off things to see if I could regain some "normalacy" in preparation for returning to work. It worked . . . mostly. Getting a sympathy card in the mail and seeing my dad's obituary was tough. Tougher than I thought it would be. Anyway, I returned to work on Friday and everyone was very sweet and supportive. My students, at least my morning students, had signed a card for me (I suspect they had help with their English as, even though they are high level students, the English in the card was word perfect). One of the students had also gotten a separate card for me, just from her. It was very, very touching. One of my coworkers gave me a card too. Everyone else told me how sorry they were and how happy they were to have me back. It's nice to know how loved I am! Anyway, I went out to a housewarming/candle party on Friday night. I wanted to be with friends. It was fun and it was nice for a couple of hours to feel "normal" again.

Saturday was the memorial service for my dad. It was nice to see how many people turned up. My grandparents came up from Oregon. My dad's old business partner came and spoke, as did some old family friends. My sister delivered the eulogy and she did a wonderful job. Her words captured my dad's life and spirit far better than the ones I attempted to write, so I'm glad I opted out of reading my letter to my dad. We received a lot of cards and flowers, so part of my afternoon was spent writing thank you cards to send to people.

I feel pretty okay now. I will always miss my dad, but because of the nature of his disease (Alzheimer's), I feel like I've been missing him for several years already. I am very glad that he's now in a place where he's not a prisoner of his mind anymore. My dad died relatively young (he was barely 65) and was in good health otherwise. Watching him waste away was so difficult. I am glad that I got to spend extra time with him in his last week. I don't wish that kind of life on anyone!