Some Days...

...I really miss my father.

It's not even the family passages or anniversaries that get me, maybe because I know they're coming and I can prepare for them. At the end of June, I had dinner with my mother and my brother to mark what would have been Dad's 77th birthday and my parents' 56th anniversary. It was a lovely meal, accompanied by good wine and better memories. We sent Eve off to sleepaway camp last week, and I was wistful about my grown-up girl, but I didn't think about Dad.

Today I found myself talking to a patient and family about turning off a pacemaker, and why the cardiologist had told them they couldn't do that*, and why I saw it differently, and I thought "oh, Daddy will be so interested in this..." I had to blink back the tears before I could go on with the conversation.

Some things sneak in under my defenses and my preparation, and I feel my grief as if it were today and not nearly four years ago. I was blessed to have a father who loved me and supported me and taught me well, and I am grateful for the years he lived. And some days I miss him so much I can hardly bear it.

___
*The cardiologist was wrong. A pacemaker, like any other medical intervention, can be withdrawn at the patient's request - not removed, but turned off.