Two Weeks Ago

I'm having a difficult time believing that it has already been two weeks since my dad died.

There are still boxes of pictures spread across my dining room.

Boxes of manila envelopes of documents to sort.

Thank-you cards to write.

Today I managed to look at this picture.

It's of my dad (the one on the right) and his friend Amos with a train they made for the play ground at a local school for children with special needs. The year is 1967.

My niece's mother-in-law presently works at this school, and says that the train is still in use.

The article on the left (click to enlarge) is something that one of the volunteers at the nursing home where my mom lives gave to my dad. She said that when she read it, it immediately reminded her of him. No one entered my dad's house this year without being given this to read. My dad's oldest granddaughter read it at the funeral.

I'm not sure how deeply I want to think about where I am in the grieving process. It would seem that I did most of my grieving early in July, when it just seemed to me that all the bits and pieces of information that I had picked up over the years of going to doctor's appointments with my dad started falling into their 'last places'. I can barely remember August.

Mostly, I'm just extremely grateful that I had so much time with my dad. If you are familiar with the Meyers/Briggs personality types, my dad was an ISTJ. Of course, he never actually took the test, but my resourceful mom just started asking him the questions at random moments. Not that it would take a PhD. to figure that out. My dad was the guy who was always "Doing what needs to be done."

This shows up most when I enter his house. He went back into the hospital on July 24th. He was still recovering from a hospital stay. Visiting nurses and therapists were coming to his home. Yet, he was on his own for all non-medical things. His bed was made. His dishes were done. He prepared his own meals. His floors were vacuumed.

This has not been the case over here in MY world. My bed is not made. My dishes do happen to be done, but I rely on May Tag for that. I have not cooked anything since - hmmm - my guess would be - Father's Day?. We will not be talking about my floors. I'm an INTJ and although I crave order I think I could be described as someone who has a pretty good idea of what should be done, but keeps tripping over things of greater interest than beds, dishes, meals and floors.

Today was my first day home with only minimal responsibilities. I slept until 8:15 (i sooo miss that 8:10 call), took my coffee, kitty (who is now flea-free) and a stack of magazines onto my back porch and listened to the quiet. There is a school down the street, so the quiet will be over by Tuesday morning. Daughter came for lunch. I watched the noon news (recorded) and promptly fell asleep. I still don't feel awake, yet.

I'm glad I have Jonge, Famke and Kado to keep me entertained. They do THAT job very well!