May 7th

***I started this entry Wednesday, but it took me a while to finish. BEWARE, it may induce tears and may be too graphic for some***

Today’s the 5th anniversary of my dad’s death. I just realized when I saw the date. I also just finished reading The Last Lecture, where Randy Paush is sending a message to his kids because he’ll die long before he should. If only everyone had advance notice. My mom also happens to be spending the night tonight. I’m sure these are all coincidences.

I wanted to write about it, though, because I don’t know if I ever did. It’s funny how I can’t remember yesterday or that Steven doesn’t like pot pies, but I still remember that day so well.

It started out so great-I won a Mother’s Day prize package for my mom. Gift certificates to a flower shop and Tanger. It was supposed to be $50 for each. Well, I got $50 from the flower place, but they accidentally gave me the grand prize for Tanger-$500. I was so excited about it I called my dad to tell him the great news. He didn’t answer. (What was NOT fun was arguing with them the next day about how I was not concerned that they gave me the wrong thing because yada, yada..no I will not be sending it back!)

My mom called me later that day and asked if I heard from him. She was trying to get in touch with him, too and couldn’t. I told her he was probably ratting the streets with one of his friends.

That night I rented Darkness Falls and brought home Popeye’s. We were trying to get Jeff and Julia to come over to watch the movie, but they didn’t. Before we started the movie I tried to call my parents to see if she ever found my dad and the phone was busy. Not unusual because my Dad never wanted call waiting. Didn’t want the expense and I think he thought, “if you were already on the phone, you didn’t need to talk to anyone else.” Anyway, I was sitting down with the chicken and we were about 5 minutes into the movie when the phone rang. (I just realized there’s something I’ve missing being in my new house-sitting on the floor to eat. We have an ottoman and concrete instead of a coffee table and carpet. Ever since I can remember, I’ve sat on the floor to eat. I love it.) Actually I must have been doing something because Steven answered. When I was done he had this horrible look on his face and he said, “Chanda said to call mom.” I have never seen him look that scared before. My stomach sank as I dialed. I already knew but was in such disbelief for so long. If you don’t know, he hung himself in the shed. He had spent so much time in there, now it seems a bit poetic. And if I wasn’t already scared enough to go in there, this did the trick. I couldn’t even sit with my back to it afterwards.

I called my boss to tell him I wouldn’t be in to work and as soon as I hung up someone else from the lottery called to see if I wanted them to drive me to Metairie that night. I will never work with more caring people. There was no way I could go there in the mist of what went on. I wanted to be home. I then called J&J and they came right over. I can’t remember if I cried. If I did it wasn’t a lot. I was just more scared and nervous than anything. And I still didn’t believe it. I couldn’t sleep that night. I don’t know if I was scared that it was real or scared that I’d sleep and see him or scared that I’d sleep and not see him. I still haven't and probably never will see Darkeness Falls.
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When my mom was here we were looking at belly and ultrasound pictures and she said that she just couldn’t understand what he was thinking. Or not thinking. He never would want to miss this. All I could do was tell her that I’m glad she’s still here.