formerly boise, idaho. currently salt lake city, utah.
in need of a muse.
posts about my dad
i don’t want to go home for thanksgiving because it will have mark a year since i last saw and talked to my dad.
i don’t want to be reminded.
my mom has to go to london, thus won’t be in town.
however, i am incredibly thankful for my best friends and couldn’t be more excited to spend the holiday with them.
scattered thoughts I
it’s been 8 months since i saw you last. this past weekend i sat in the same terminal, in front of the same gate, in which I remember being an emotional wreck in. i stared at that gate, and I hated everything about B21. the flight about to depart was even going to Boise, and for that moment, i despised everyone standing in line to board.
it took me back to when I was in the most vulnerable state I’d ever been in. I felt empty, I was nervous, scared, and most of all had no idea what to do. there was nothing I could do. I knew I was going home to say goodbye, and I hated it.
but I’m glad I got to say goodbye.
i know i say this often, but i feel like each month since, I’ve grown a little more because of you. i still struggle a lot, but I’m working on it; I’m working on being strong again.
I remember each Saturday you had a different goal. whether it be building a workbench or fixing the sink, you put your whole heart into it. sometimes you’d wake up so early to take me to my basketball games, then from there drive me up the mountain just so I could get in a few runs before the slopes closed for the evening. as I was out there, year after year, every Saturday, you sat in the lodge and drank your coffee and read your book. you never complained.
I was always by your side; I even got my own toolbelt for my 8th birthday. I’d measure and mark, and even sometimes get to saw the wood. however I was never strong enough and was always too little to really cut through anything. but you stood there smiling and eventually just handed me a hammer so I could nail whatever I wanted. we built a lot of workbenches and birdhouses that way.
we always made weekly trips to Costco and it was tradition that you’d always get a hot dog once we had finished checking out. I hadn’t been to Costco since I’d moved here, and truthfully, I was almost avoiding it because it reminded me of you. I sat down at that table with you in mind this past friday. it’s almost funny how the most common, everyday things bring back the most vivid memories.
— mom, in reference to a dream about my dad.
coming home has always been a bittersweet feeling. at the beginning of the school year, i was coming into boise about once, sometimes twice a month. this was usually just on weekends and only to see my dad.
tomorrow i’m going to go see his memorial site for the first time. i’m not sure what to expect because i’ve never been in this situation before. i wasn’t able to come home for the actual memorial service due to my school being a douchebag to me, so this will be something completely new.
today on my drive from salt lake to boise, i obviously had a lot of time to think to myself— 6 hours to be exact. the scenery was beautiful; snow covered the foilage on the side of the roads, snow capped mountains, bright blue sky. i couldn’t have asked for a better day to be driving home.
it took me back to when my dad and i would travel in the RV. we took trips from boise, to california, to minnesota, and down to houston before circling back up. i was fairly young, maybe 7 or 8 and it was just when we moved to the US. being the young tike that i was, i always wanted to be just like my dad. if i wasn’t in the HUGE passenger seat (that swiveled around completely), i was sitting on his lap controlling a steering wheel the size of my little body. his dark aviator glasses matched perfectly with his old tobacco pipe, which always hung on the right side of his mouth. ha, i remember when he let me smoke once. it was the same night he let me try beer. we were watching an atlanta braves baseball game in the garage.
along with RV rides, we’d go camping and fishing almost every weekend in the summer. i want to be able to do that with my kids some day— give them everything i’ve got. because all i received was the best from my dad. he’d give up the world to be with me.
i think about my dad a lot, every day actually. i always think of what he’d do in certain situations or even the lessons he had taught me throughout my life. i just know that one day, i’ll look at my kids, and be able to say “yeah, i got that from my dad.”
i cried because i had no shoes, until i saw a man that had no feet.
this just popped in my head - my dad used to say to me about wanting unnecessary things in life.
smart man.
it’s been a long month, and now my exhaustion has caught up with me. i came to boise on the 10th of december, completely on a whim. within the matter of 4 hours, i’d booked a flight, showered, packed, and arrived in boise.
i feel like i’ve grown up so much in the past month, but in so many different ways.
a lot of people have told me that they’re “worried/concerned” about me, and quite frankly, i was pretty alright until tonight. my friend’s mom, emily, gave me a christmas/birthday present that definitely hit home. i opened the present of a small little ornament type thing. upon opening it, i had no idea what it was at all, nor did i realize the importance of it until now. emily and my dad had gone to lunch about 2 years ago, long before my dad started showing big signs of his decline. over lunch, as emily told me, she and my dad mainly talked about me and my dad’s dreams for me for the next few years. they went to angell’s bar & grill, a restaurant here in boise. wrapped up in my dad’s napkin was this small ornament, in which frames a quote by ralph waldo emerson: “what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” my dad continued to rave about me, about his dreams for me, about how i was his little girl, and how it was funny that this quote was in his napkin described me and the way i live my life - to a T. emily asked my dad if he’d like her to give it to me, and so he said yes. but he probably thought she’d give it to me right after lunch - not two years later when he’d die. it’s funny how these types of things work out.
dealing with death is never easy, but it never has to be difficult. i was told after all of this happened that it was “weird” how i was so okay with everything. it’s not like i wanted this to happen, but i’ve just learned to deal with it in a positive manner. for so long, and even still, i’m always the strong pillar for everyone else. when everything began happening, it felt as if everyone was just waiting for me to crumble; i was too scared to. so may people seem to rely on me to help keep them strong, and i was afraid to break down fearing that those around me would fall too. i don’t like it when people see me at my weakest. i’ve learned though that the weakest points in my life give me a new foundation to build even more strength off of. i really couldn’t have done this without my friends. I feel like I’ve grown even closer to my best friends, and made some great friends in this past month.
i wish i could rotate this?
anyways, THIS IS FOR DANIKA, and it hurt like a beezy.
happy birthday to me! part 2.
so i was going through my tumblr archive, because i was curious to know what i’d posted a year ago on december 13th, the day my dad passed away this year.
on december 13th, 2009, i posted this video/song.
it has always been SO beautiful to me.
i’m in so much shock right now.
http://whatisstoppingyou.tumblr.com/post/282083085
coincidence?
I always felt like I knew something about december 13th. last year when i posted that song, i remember exactly what i was feeling. i remember that day very clearly, and i remember that my sudden “rush” of emotion had come out of no where. I was just in a downer mood for no reason.
i listened to this song because it took me to a different place? in a sense.
for my final portfolio, i’m doing a portraits set. it’s my first real attempt at portraiture.
anyways, here is shot number 1.
my theme is “youthfulness shown through age”
this is my dad.
refer to this post:
http://whatisstoppingyou.tumblr.com/post/1711858910
alzheimer’s can be a beautiful thing
before you even begin reading this, I bet you’re probably asking why? or how? that’s impossible. it’s one of the hardest diseases to be diagnosed with, but not nearly as hard as it is to watch someone suffer from it. they will go through phases with it, starting with forgetting simple things such as phone numbers and addresses, to progressively begin to forget logistical things like putting on socks or underwear.
eventually names will be forgotten and people begin to be known by what they do (the lawyer?) or what they look like (the blonde girls mom?). alzheimer’s disease has become one of the most interesting things to me. being a nursing/psychology major, it’s what my majors are for. it shows the best of both worlds, without the psychotic killings. I cant wait until I’m a doctor. I want to help people understand what is going on, because I want to help people avoid what I went through.
I used to really struggle with what was then dementia, and now has progressed into alzheimer’s with my dad. I’ve been both blessed and cursed with a crazy family situation, but I have never once taken it for granted.
it first began with a stroke that has left me scarred for life. I never want to see anything like that again. seeing the first, then the second, and then finally the third, is what has shaped me. Soon after, I would find myself panicking over the smallest, non-related things. something else completely not even relevant to my dad would happen, and I just had a lot on my shoulders that I had no idea how to keep ahold of. I would freak out because I felt like everything was crumbling around me and I couldn’t control it.
… but that was it.
I couldn’t control it. i can’t control a lot of things. I couldn’t control if he just didn’t remember how to tie his shoes or how to button his shirt. it wasn’t his fault, so why should I get frustrated? why should I take my anger out on other people, or even myself?
that was the key; that was the breakthrough. don’t get me wrong, it only took me 5 fucking years to get to this point, but I did it.
sure I can only call between noon and 4, otherwise he wont know who I am. and sure I can’t tell him when I’m coming to visit because he’ll get too anxious and wont sleep, but those are just some puzzles I had to figure out on my own.
nothing compares to his reaction when he sees me standing in the doorway. I can be standing in shorts and a tank top in the summer, or jeans and a peacoat in the winter, and he will still know who i am. I can be wearing glasses, or even have my hair up, and he will still know who I am. he might not realize where he is, but he’ll realize that I’m there, and that’s all I need. not many people that have come into his life are fortunate enough to be remembered by him, but that’s when you know you’ve made a lasting impression on someone’s life.
I will sit there for hours on end, listening to him tell me about how he was in new york a few days ago, or how he just got promoted to being “the big boss around here”. every once in awhile when his shoes go missing, it’s because “the maids probably stole them.” you see, he’s the manager of a hotel, and couldn’t be happier.
his sunken, bright blue eyes light up with every joke he tells. his laugh can fill an entire building, and his sense of humor is unlike anyone else’s. many times when I go to see him, he’s helping the other residents, especially the ladies, walk. or will refill their water. or will get them food. he’s always been like that: doing things for people out of the kindness of his heart. everyday I call him, the employees always tell me he’s the sweetest guy. I love that he’s so loved.
even though we all know he doesn’t work in a hotel, and that he’s really in an assisted living home in Boise, Idaho, it doesn’t matter anymore. just as long as he is happy living the life in his mind, then there is no reason I should be sad about it anymore.
