Starting over

It’ll be three years in July without Dad. It feels like it was yesterday when I drove four hours home to my dad waiting for us in the morgue. That was the longest drive of my life and one I’ll never forget. The two weeks of the year where I have Army Reserve duty, and I lose my dad when I’m away from home. I’ll never forget what I was thinking when I heard.

I had just completed my Army duty day, and called him on the way back to my hotel. I left him a voicemail, since he didn’t answer. My brother in law had called to see if I had spoken to him, because no one was able to reach him.

My dad was not the kind of man to leave a message unread. He always responded, always called back. I remember discussing going running during our lunch breaks and texting the other to keep each other accountable. I had been to his work place and he showed me his running trail. He had grown up in Florida, so it was normal for him to run outside in the heat with no issues.

That one day, I knew exactly what had happened and why he wasn’t answering. I knew he was dead. I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s the first thing that came out of my mouth. I knew he was gone before the cops ever found the police report.

He called my mom at 11:42am on a Friday afternoon while he was at work. He told my mom he loved her and started his afternoon run. He was found at 12:02pm and was resuscitated, then transported to a hospital. He only made it for 8 more hours and couldn’t fight his heart attack any further. My father was pronounced dead at 8:07pm that evening.

The sad thing was that my sister, my mom and I were all out of town that Friday. We didn’t find out until Sunday. My dad went two days without his family knowing he had died.

My brother in law and I teamed up to try to find him, me in Jacksonville, packing my bags furiously to get back to Tampa to look for my dad even though I knew the worst had happened. I told my brother in law Andrew where dad might be, his running route. I hoped he had just lost his phone there or something, I prayed that’s all it was; but I already knew.

I called all the hospitals in the area, asking if my dad came in. All of them said no. As I hung up the last call, it hit me. My dad wouldn’t have had his ID because he never runs with his wallet. He would have been a John Doe. I didn’t call back, because I already knew and couldn’t bare it.

As I was leaving the hotel, my sister called. The police had found my dad, listed as a John Doe at the last hospital I had called. I can’t tell you how I knew what happened, knew exactly what he was doing and where he was when he died. I didn’t even think my dad and I were that close, but apparently we were.

Trying to live my life now has been like starting over. He’s taught me so much, but I feel like I’ve been stripped of him and his knowledge. Remembering his laughs and smiles fills my heart with a wrenching pain knowing I’ll never get to see them again. I wish he could tease me one more time about something, one more joke. Just one more.

At first I said “Not yet, I wasn’t ready. He’s not done yet. He has so much more to teach me.” With heartache, I have to say now he’s taught me more that I could have ever asked for. In most of my every day actions, I see him. He’s not gone, just not here with me.

Living without him is something I’ll have to learn to do. But for now, I’ll take one day at a time, and keep looking for him in every stranger I see. I double take people sometimes because they look like him. I don’t know what I’m thinking, because they’re obviously not him, but I always seem to hope it is.

My motivation has to be re-lit. I’ve been in a slump for too long, and he would have had me in so mouth trouble if he saw me feeling sorry for myself. Time to start over, time to learn how to live again. You never think something like this can rock you so hard, but it really does.

This ones for you Dad. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me, and I’m feelin good.

Until we meet again Dad. I love you. I miss you, and I won’t let you down.