Day +16, Year +81, 400+ days without Papa

I am just so sad today.  Father would have been 81 today.  He missed being 80 by one month and 6 days.  Maybe he just did not want to leave his 70's as they were pretty good years.

Still no counts, I assume.  They did not draw labs this AM because she is still receiving red cells.  "Line Traffic"  (a whole story for another day).  I don't think today is the day.  She is tired, sore, angry, frustrated, sad, despairing, suffering from "left behind by life syndrome", you name it and there is deep despair... It is breaking every one's heart. 

Oh and if there is an errant white blood cell swishing around somewhere, I am going to be opening lots of bottle of champagne. On campus, in the hospital..... What are they going to do... put me on another list?


Yesterday I went home to check on the mail and do a couple of things like empty my voice mail.  I have not listened to any saved messages since Dad died.  Yes almost 400 days.  I figured that there was nothing that was still urgent.  Yesterday I was doing something else while the playback was happening and yep, "I just want to know......." in Dad's snide teasing voice.  I knew I had kept a couple of messages, I just was not prepared to hear his voice.  But then how do we prepare for such things.  I have been "seeping" ever since.  


If I could, this room would be full of daffodils today. ( No plants or flowers allowed) Lots and lots of them. They were Dad's favorite flower and he loved the color.  He bought a car that color.  A car we called the "yellow dinosaur".  He had polyester pants that color that he promised to throw out the window of our hotel in Venice on New Year's Eve.  I am sure that Mom will be going to the river and sending a few daffodils to the ocean today.  I will do something, as soon as I think about what that is.

I think today gets to be a sad day.  A day to list the losses and to think about what they mean.  A day to just sit and seep.  Sometimes those days are necessary so that when the days are over we can look back and measure how far we have come and how much we have learned that during the long dark cold wet miserable winter. The daffs are growing and will appear.  They remind us that not all is lost.

Maybe I will walk through the neighborhood and borrow a few.  Opps, did I say that outloud?