Tomorrow is another day

It's early, 5:00am early, but my schedule is all out of whack from spending Sunday night in the hospital with Tristan. I hate hospitals. In less than 24 hours, it will be the anniversary of my father's death. 11 years.... it seems like a long time. I can still remember going to the hospital with my mother to collect his things. It seemed so cruel, his belongings shoved into a kraft paper envelope labeled "CARPICK, Jeffrey", unceremoniously shoved across the counter by the nurse at the desk. A life, reduced to an envelope of clothing and a wedding ring.

Officially my father died of pneumonia. What actually happened was after suffering from severe diabetes for the last 15 years, his body decided that it finally needed to rest. He had endured experimental surgeries and drugs, been sent to dozens of specialists who all said they just didn't know what to do. On the night of December 5, 1995, my sister came home and found my father in diabetic shock. She called the ambulance and the paramedics said, "Don't worry, he'll be fine." Obviously not... his liver failed and he succumbed to his disease.

Excuse me if I seem bitter when others say, "He's too young to die" and the person in question is in their 60's. My father was 43 years old. His daughters were only 13 and 15, and he predeceased both of his parents. He never saw his children graduate, get married, and have families of their own.

I miss him.... those words just don't even begin to describe it. He's been gone for so long that some days I wonder if he was ever really here. So many stories and memories that now it seems impossible to separate myth from man. I still feel his presence with me sometimes, and it brings me peace.

In the end though, tomorrow is just another day. We are not marked by how and when we die, but how we lived. Perhaps someday I will be able to look beyond this awful anniversary, but 11 years feels like such a short time ago, and then at the same times feels a lifetime away...