New Years Eve 2014
I don’t know where to begin. I
guess with the statement that 2014 has been the worst year of my life.
My
father died September 6th after a hard fought battle with liver
disease and cancer.
Ill begin from the beginning
though. Its New Years Eve of 2014, and I woke up this morning like I have many
years past by reading the post I made from the previous year. Many times…too
many times, I’ve made declarations of what I’d like to see change in my life,
only to read the post a year later and realize I’m in the same position I was
then. This year is a little like that and not as well.
Looking at that post from midnight
last year I see myself sick, sad, tired, drinking too much, eating too much, and
still pining for Mike. Unfortunately, none of that has changed.
The year started with me not
meeting my goal of cleaning my act up before surgery. In fact I kind of went in
the opposite direction. Still exercising 6 days a week…(that is the ONE thing I
can proudly say I have not lost), but drinking a lot and just not being
accountable for my eating.
My dad had heart surgery in
January, and was feeling great afterwards. We had great hopes that his life had
just been extended. We did not see what was just around the corner. He was
tired a lot …had been for years. We all put it off on his weight, and frankly
him being a little lazy…a thought I now shudder from. What we never knew, and
were never told by any of the hundreds of Drs that he saw over the years, was
that we were really watching him slowly die. I digress…I’m trying to go in
order so I can keep it all straight.
Surgery #1 happened February 10th.
I had a lower body lift and a breast augmentation. The night before surgery I
practically begged Mike to call me. I just wanted to hear his voice. He didn’t.
Three weeks into my recovery from surgery
I got a bad infection. MRSA in one of the drains. I was hospitalized for 3
days. Scared to death and so sick I literally thought I might die at some
point, I reached out to him again. He responded the first night then just
stopped again. When I got home I ripped into him. I sent him a particularly nasty email in which
I believe I called him out (finally) for all the things I suspected him of. The
lying, the possible cheating, the keeping me hidden and still dating me for
what? To use me for gifts and sex and whatever comfort he needed at the time. I
sent this and finally got a response. He was hurt and angry that I thought that
of him, and of course I immediately felt terrible, and took it all back. So the
hope of talking to him and maybe seeing him continued.
I did finally talk to him on the
phone….once. I think it was March…it was right before Easter…that I know for
sure. I called him on the way to a Dr. appointment one morning and he agreed to
call me later that night. He did. We had a talk like we used to. Mostly him
bitching about his work and things like that.
I talked about my surgery a little bit, but he wasn’t really all that
curious as to what I’d even had done. I was being careful not to get into anything
serious, hoping that he’d agree to meet with me, which at the end of the
conversation he did. Finally. I went to sleep that night with such a feeling of
joy and relief. I was finally going to get to have the conversation I needed to
close the door.
A week went by and nothing. I was willing
to wait then though because I was healing and part of me had a fantasy that he’d
see me in my new body and want me back, or at least regret letting me go a
little. My new body was not what I’d hoped, but it was better. I set a goal to
work hard on getting myself straight with the food and the booze again and lose
more weight before surgery #2. The second surgery was supposed to be in May,
but because my dad and mom had made some other financial decisions, it was put
off until November. I kept trying to talk to Mike and get him to see me but it
just went back to him putting me off like before. I was just wrapping my head around this, and
getting myself back on track with my plan to lose more weight and get it all
together when my dad was diagnosed with cancer.
He told us on Easter. We were all
hopeful that the treatment they were recommending would knock it back and
encouraged him to move forward with it as soon as possible. A thought now that
I know we all deeply regret. We were only going off of what the Drs were
telling us, and none of them ever mentioned that the treatment might actually kill
him by shutting down his kidneys. We were focused on the cancer that was in his
liver. It was small they said and the treatment was not as complicated as
traditional chemo. They would place a blob of chemo around the tumor and watch
it to see if it would shrink. The chemo would
dissolve and then we’d see where we were. The first treatment was to begin at
the end of May.
The first person I wanted to talk
to about this was Mike. I needed him more than ever it seemed. He’d been
through this after all with him mom when we first met so I knew he’d
understand, and hoped he’d come to my aid as a friend. He didn’t. He told me to
lean on my family, then he just disappeared again. I was more devastated than
ever. It seemed unreal that he could just let me go through this alone. I know…we
were broken up, but I reasoned that wed kept in touch all this time and just couldn’t
believe that he could be so cold when I was going through something he knew was
so horrible.
That’s when everything seemed to
just dive off a cliff.
June is a big month for our
family. My birthday, both my parents birthdays, their anniversary, as well as
Fathers day. We were prepared to see him get tired and possibly have the traditional
sick reactions to the treatment, so we decided to have a family dinner at my
parents favorite restaurant, LaGrotta, right before it was to begin. That would
turn out to be the last time my dad ever went out to dinner. The last real well
and happy moment we were going to have with him. I remember we toasted to doing
it again when the treatment was over. We could never imagine that he’d be dead
in 3 months.
Those months went by so fast and
so furiously. We kept telling the Drs that he was incredibly tired. They didn’t
see him and kept blaming it on the chemo, when in reality his kidneys were
failing.
My life during all this was a blur
of sadness and heartache. I was watching my dad suffer, my mom worry, and my
sisters dealing with it in their own ways. Beth in her way of stepping
completely out of reality and not ever thinking the worst…Elise dealing hard
with reality and making plans. Thank god she did for my moms sake.
I kept going back and forth with
Mike. Id send him a text telling him I was done, a month or a few weeks would
go by then I start it up again. I went though June with zero contact, then in
July my dad was admitted to the hospital after we finally just took him to the
ER and that’s when we found out about the kidneys. He was in ICU for a week and
the hospital for a week during which time the Drs danced around the awful
truth. My dad was going to die.
My parents wouldn’t even believe
it until a week after we got him home and he had a final visit to his Dr. He
was finally told the blunt truth, but even then we thought he’d be around for a
few months…maybe longer with luck. It was not to be.
We set a goal to get him to the
beach. My daddy loved the beach. We were set to go on our usual family vacation
2 weeks after he was released form the hospital. The night before we left he
got sepsis in his leg. Elise stayed and they insisted the rest of us go on, and
that they would be down in a few days. By Wednesday he was in a hospital bed in
the house.
That trip will always be so bitter
sweet. The weather was perfect. The house was beautiful. It would have been so
perfect for him. We had a good time through daily tears. It still didn’t seem
like he could die so soon. We came home early after Elise said he was not doing
great. We made a plan for us each to take turns staying up there, assuming it
might be weeks. Elise had been there the whole time since wed left for the
beach so I stayed at their house for the first 3 days. Beth then stayed for 2
days before we all came back up again.
The last words…if they were words…I
ever heard my daddy say to me were on the morning of September 4th.
I was leaving the gym and called the house to check on him. Mom said he’d had a
very bad night. She tried to give him the phone and all he did was make a noise
that sounded like he was trying to speak. Then he went to sleep. He died 2 days
later, September 6th. I was there that morning. Wed come to stay the
night before, and I’d gotten up to go to a gym down the street. I went by his
room downstairs and passed it on the way out…stopped, went back in and leaned
over to his ear. I told him I was going to the gym, and that I loved him and that
if he wanted to go it was OK. He died 5 minutes before I walked back in the
door.
I’d been texting Mike the whole
time, him telling him that my dad was dying and he had not answered. I was desperate
for comfort from him and he was just MIA. I just couldn’t believe, even if it
had been almost a year at that point that wed been apart, that anyone could be
so cold as to just ignore me when I was going through such hell. He finally
messaged back the night before the wake saying he was sorry for my loss. That
was it. I sent him a nasty message over Facebook saying I couldn’t believe that’s
all he could say …more…I told him I was disgusted that I’d even allowed myself
to care about him…I think I called HIM disgusting. He sent me a reply on the day of my dads wake.
Pissed off that I’d been ugly to him, and saying “what did you expect me to say…”
He was right. What did I expect? We’re not only broken up for close to a year
at that point, but had only been in touch really because I just wouldn’t let it
go. I messaged him back apologizing…again…and saying I’d go away.
I did. The funeral happened….life
got back to “normal” but I’ve been in a fog ever since. My dad was stolen from
us and when he went, he took away our happiness. My mom is so heartbroken. I
cry every day at some point. I’m terribly lonely and uncertain for my future.
Surgery #2 happened in November. Again,
not as planned. Different surgeon and now I still have to have one more in a
year if I can afford to pay for it. I’m happy with the results this time, but I
now realize that my body will never be “normal”. I am hoping that I will be
able to meet someone that will love me the way I am. I’d like to think that
will happen soon…hopefully this year at some point… but I know I have to get
happy inside again and make the changes that I pledged to make last year. I
feel like I’ve been on a slow ride into the bottom of a bottle with a plate of
cheese in one hand and a broken heart in the other.
My financial life has to change as
well because any support my parents were giving me had to stop, which of course
is fine, and a plan I had in my head to begin in January anyway. I guess I just
wasn’t prepared for it like I should have been. I’m having to make sacrifices
that I took for granted. The gym, my trainer, and I’m going to have to nip the
drinking in the bud. That will be a good thing, and the working out I can do at
home. Also my work in the last year was good. Really good in spite of all the
things that were going on so it’s not a bleak as it seems, it’s just an
adjustment that is long overdue.
I know I’m kind of skipping
forward after my dad’s funeral but really since he died it’s just been a blur
of sadness and longing for Mike all over again. We’ve been in touch again but
nothing has changed. I think its just me being lonely period, and wanting that
feeling back again I had when we did have good times.
Also, I can finally see that he
was probably never really his true self with me when we met because of his mom
dying, and that maybe he was coming out of his own fog in July when he got his
apartment and things really went bad for us. When I look back and see how he
was…never wanting to go anywhere and be around people…especially people he didn’t
know…and pretend to be happy...I finally get it. I get it because I’m exactly
the same way now. I feel like even when I do go out I can only get “happy” when
I get shitfaced. He didn’t take that path. I remember him telling me once early
on when I questioned why he wasn’t having a beer he said he was sad and that he
felt like it would be really easy for him to slip down a dark path of drinking
if he did…so he didn’t. A very wise man indeed. I don’t think Mike will ever
know how much his being a part of my life balanced me in those ways. As crazy
as it sounds, and as much as he shouldn’t have hidden me and hurt me like he
did, he really was good for me and good to me in the only way he knew how to be
I guess.
So here I sit, about to begin another
year. My goals are the same, again.
Get healthy again.
Focus on work, eating healthy and
working out.
Find balance in my life alone, so
when “he” comes along I’ll be able to embrace it and balance him too.
Stop with Mike. Just stop. If I can’t
have him in my life I must finally let it go. I don’t want to be sitting here in another
year writing the same things.
I feel like I need to end this on
a happy note somehow so here goes. The good things this year were my work and
my surgeries. Something I never in my life dreamed possible happened and it was
truly life changing. I haven’t had a chance to even enjoy or embrace it yet because
of all the overwhelmingly sad things that surrounded it, but I will in 2015 because
that’s what my daddy would have wanted. He was so proud of me I know it, and
though I will miss him every day for the rest of my life, I can look in the
mirror and see the last gifts he ever gave me and smile. I owe it to him to
take care of my body and my life. To truly make him proud and live a life
without fear or regret.
I love you daddy and I will do
this. I promise.
Happy New Year.
