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There' a hole in my heart that goes all the way to China...
Written at 1:12 p.m. on Tuesday, Jun. 24, 2003

Today my father would have been 53.

For some reason lately, I havent been able to stop thinking about him. I guess we women do tend to find mates that remind us of our fathers. I suppose that's the part that scares me.

They are alike in so many ways. My father was a good father. There wasnt a minute that went by that I didnt feel loved. I remember as a kid always wanting to be with my father...tagalong wherever he went. I think he always secretly wanted a son because most of our time together was spent hitting softballs and playing blackjack. He raised a tomboy, so that was close enough. One time I really wanted a Barbie doll...and he came home with a He-man "action figure". Its the thought that counts.

There was a dark side to him to. He had a short temper, I remember that. I would love to say that I have a plethora of stored memories about my father, but unfortunately I dont. I have some cherished ones filed away, but for the most part its empty.

When I was 13, my mother and I moved out. My father had been diagnosed with MS the year before. Within that year, he transformed into someone that I didnt know...and dont care to remember. He was angry at the world. Here he was a healthy 36 year old man who almost overnight became confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He didnt feel like a man anymore, just someone dependent on someone else. He was angry and my mother and I were the only ones there for him to take it out on. That's why I choose to only remember before then, because he wasnt the person he had become.

I miss him though. I always will. I'm made up of two parts...and one half is gone. You kinda feel a part of you die too when you lose a parent. Its a part of you that's lost forever...that you can never get back. A hole that will never be filled. He wont be there to walk me down the aisle...or play with my children. There's alot lost.

I still feel bad about never telling him how much I loved him. I sent him a letter around Christmastime (1994) just after I had moved to California. We had been out of touch up until that time. In between me putting the letter in the mailbox and it getting into his mailbox, he died...and the letter was sent back to me. I hate that he never got to read it. So many things left unsaid.

But somehow...he knows.

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