I got a text from my mother today (because unfortunately we haven't progressed past emails and texts) letting me know that my (step) Dad's house and everything else had been sold and she was finished handling the last of his affairs. It took my breath away to realize that everything that was his, everything he had and had worked for was now gone.
He worked at Pearl Harbor for forty (40!!) years and didn't get the chance to experience retirement because he died just a year and a half after retiring. The house that he bought 30+ years ago for his family, his kids, now belongs to someone else. His car, his clothes, furniture...all gone. It's just stuff, but how fragile is life when it can all be reduced to a few belongings and sold off? He worked his whole life in pursuit of a good retirement check and a house to pass on to his kids. But it didn't work out that way. It's all been sold and he died before he could collect all those retirement checks.
It's all gone. Everything has been sold and my mother is leaving Hawaii. Theoretically I don't have anything left to go back to Hawaii to see any more. The only left there is Ron's grave site. Some day I may go see that but right now it's hard to imagine.
I was the girl that grew up without a dad, but Ron changed all that. He made such a big difference in my life. But when you lose somebody and the shock of they're GONE really hits you, you keep wondering if you said I love you enough, thank you for making a difference in my life enough. You keep wondering if they know they mattered to you. You hope they did. You hope you said it enough.
I miss him so much. This was just one more reminder that he is really and truly and completely gone. I wish I had the faith to know that he's gone to Heaven or Utopia or wherever it is that we ascend to. I hope he's with my baby girl that I lost 11 years ago. I hope he is somewhere better and that he is pain free and happy.
It's just stuff but I have so many memories in that house. Holidays. Birthdays. Moments of growing up and becoming pieces of the woman I am now. I went "home" to that house when my first marriage fell apart. My son was potty trained in that house. I survived my first surgery and one of the biggest health scares I've ever had in that house. And thanks in great part to Ron's guidance and love. Part of my life was in that house and now somebody else is making a life there.
I hope they make memories there and live a life worth remembering too.
I haven't been blogging very much and a good deal of this year's writings have been about everything else except life with Fibro, but this is all part of "life with fibro" too. And I will get back to all that. But right now, I am learning to live in a new reality without someone I love very much. I miss my Dad.
