Dear Daddy,

Another year has passed without you here with us. I still miss you like crazy. That doesn't change with each passing year. 

I started school a few months ago. I know you are so happy that I've decided to finish school. I am really enjoying it, and I have learned and grown so much during the few short weeks I've been back in school. I recently had to write a paper about work and how working has blessed my life. My paper was kind of about you. Here it is. 

     Working and Healing Together

     When my Daddy passed away almost four years ago, there was a huge hole left in my heart, to say the least. I have always been a Daddy’s girl, and the fact that he is no longer living on this earth hasn’t changed that. I knew it was time for him to go, but I really wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be to say goodbye when it came right down to it. Never having another conversation with him, never hugging him again, and never hearing any of his corny jokes ever again was almost more than I could bear at times. The pain of it all seemed magnified by the fact that I lived so far away from my mom and six siblings. I felt like I needed them more than ever to get through the hard days and nights.

     My mom seemed to be doing amazingly well in the beginning. She was a rock before, during, and after the funeral. I remember being surprised, and impressed by how well she was holding up. But once things started to settle down and everyone returned to their own homes and lives, it all started to hit her. The reality of her being without her husband of over 40 years was hard on her emotionally and physically. I knew she was going to need a lot of support from her children.

     Since we live about 18 hours away from my parents’ home, we usually only go home for

either Thanksgiving or Christmas. And since my daddy had passed away just before Thanksgiving, we figured that would be our trip for the holidays. However, after realizing that my mama needed us there, we decided to go home for Christmas too. It was a wonderful time of love, laughter, and healing for us all.

     After we enjoyed celebrating Christmas together,  we asked my mom what we could do to help her with things around the house. We all helped with Christmas decorations, cleaning, and some odds and ends. My husband, being a landscaper, noticed that her bushes needed trimming and asked if she would like for him to take care of it for her. He got up early one morning and went out and trimmed all of the bushes. It wasn’t until he was done that we all realized just how big my mama’s house is and just how overgrown those bushes really were. My husband, my children,  a few nieces and nephews who were there, and I all went out to help pick up the huge piles of trimmings and carried them to the woods behind my mama’s house.  It took us a few hours to get it all picked up. That was physically hard work.

     However, the hardest part was yet to come. My mama asked if I would clean out the computer room for her. I agreed to do it, since I really enjoy organizing. But I didn’t realize how emotionally hard it would be to clean out that room. This was the room my daddy spent a lot of time in. In the years before he passed away, he had learned to “surf the web”, and he absolutely loved it. But even more that, he loved printing the things he found while he was surfing. We threw out bags and bags full of just random information that he printed off of the computer. We laughed and laughed as we tried to figure out why in the world he printed so much stuff. And we cried together as we found pictures, genealogy, the last few talks that he gave in Sacrament Meeting at church, and some other priceless treasures that we had been searching for since he died.

     My mom also asked if I would help her go through my Daddy’s closet and help clean out his clothes. We made several piles of clothes: a pile for my mama, a pile for my brothers, a pile to donate, and a pile for me. The pile for me was mostly his work clothes, pjs, and some of his favorite shirts that I took and cut into squares. There ended up being enough for each of my siblings to take a stack to make a memory quilt from my daddy’s clothes. This ended up being my favorite part of the whole process.

     Although this was a hard experience, and one that I would have thought I would not have enjoyed, it turned out to be a wonderful blessing for me to be a part of. I felt like it brought me closer to my mama to be able to help her with such a hard task. I also felt closer to my Daddy because I know he was there with us, and that he appreciated me helping my mama. And I felt the love of my Savior as he poured out his tender mercies upon us while we were completing such a tremendous task. I am indeed grateful for the blessings of work.

I sure am grateful for you Daddy.....for the things you have taught me while you were here, and for the lessons I have learned from you since you left this earth. I hope you get to read my blog every now and again like you used to. And I hope you know that I love you dearly.
Love,
Lynetta