My Dad & I

I haven’t been writing much lately because nothing has an ending.

My dad has been in the hospital for 12 days and nothing has made him better.

I wrote those words and the very next day we got our ending. My father passed away on 12/10/2020.

Just the final push to make sure 2020 would solidly win the worst year of our lives.

It has now been 1 week without my dad and I don’t understand how so much time has passed already.

Growing up I knew my dad and I were very different from one another. I think that is what brought us together, and also tore us apart at times. I didn’t play sports like my siblings did.  He never coached me like he did with them and honestly, if he had, it would not have gone well. I know that for a fact. I was much better rooting on my siblings from the stands with my mom and I took that job very seriously. Almost too seriously at times. I would argue with my dad about certain plays and calls that I didn’t agree with during games and it would always end with him telling me to respect the referees because it was their job to know the rules. (My dad was also a referee for many years so I took that advice to be a bit biased) Since I didn’t play sports growing up, I still needed to find ways to bond with my dad. I truly believe that is where my very intense love of basketball (and all sports, really) comes into play. I wanted to be able to have conversations with him and feel like I was contributing and knowledgeable about what we were talking about. I poured myself into picking my favorite team: The Golden State Warriors. I picked them because 1. Stephen Curry got drafted there and 2. My dad is from Oakland and grew up going to Warriors’ games. I thought it would be a way I could be closer to him. I learned that basketball would bring us closer together and it would also be the cause of some of our biggest arguments. We found out later on down the road that he is the world’s biggest bandwagon fan, it was a very frustrating time for our relationship when he started to root for the Clippers, just because they were “good”. We would argue and bicker constantly about our respective teams and even though I would get so frustrated that I would cry, yell, leave the room…it was our thing. Everyone knew that we were going to fight because of basketball. Right now, I’d take any argument with him.

I truly don’t think I would care about sports at all if it had not been the only way I could find to bring us together. I was my dad’s non-athletic daughter. I would send him videos of me playing catch with J or hitting a whiffle ball really well because I wanted to impress him and show how much it meant to get his approval on something I never thought I was good at. He always told me ways to improve, but that he was very proud of me, and I was satisfied with that. During the (almost) 2 weeks my dad spent in the hospital with Covid, we pretty much only talked about sports. I went back and looked through my texts with him, (it was too painful for him to talk on the phone so we resorted to just messages) and I noticed that every time there was football on TV, he and I would text about the games. He was so excited when the Raiders won and he was telling me all about different plays that made him excited for the team and where they were going. Even though football isn’t a sport I really care about, I would look up what he was talking about and watch the games I knew he was watching so that I could feel close to him. I’m happy that those were some of the last conversations we had together. It feels right that we ended with sports you know?

Like I said before, my dad and I were very different people. I am almost the exact same person as my mom. We are extremely emotional humans. We make decisions with our hearts first and then maybe think them through. We would each have 100 dogs living in our homes & sleeping on our beds if we could. We love very hard and we show that. We need love to be reciprocated back to us in obvious ways and my dad was the opposite of all these things. He was logical, straightforward, and sure, he liked animals but they belonged outside. He loved hard but in a private way. My whole life I struggled with feeling loved by my dad. He so clearly loved my siblings because he had activities he could bond with them over. Like I said, I didn’t play sports, my dad was never my coach, and my dad never had to go to any events for me. This caused some problems between us growing up. I became rebellious and combative towards him. I never felt good enough because I didn’t think physically I was good enough. I tried to pick fights with him, I did things I knew would upset him just to get reactions out of him. I drank alcohol, I would sneak out to be with boys and my friends, and I didn’t always go to church; all things I knew he hated.

My dad was a very simple and pure man. In my 30 years of life, I never saw my dad drink alcohol. I once saw him accidentally drink a mimosa that he thought was just juice and that was a disaster. My dad went to church every Sunday (if he could) with or without us. He believed in Jesus and his faith both annoyed me and inspired me. This man believed that God had a plan for everyone and everything. When we were allowed to access the belongings he had at the hospital (they had to be quarantined outside for 3 days after his death before we could touch them), I opened up his computer and found 4 tabs open. One was this stupid video game he played every day. We always made fun of him for it, but he absolutely loved it. The second tab was an article about the Dodgers. The third was an article about the Raiders, and the final tab was a daily devotional. That one got me. My dad was in the hospital and still turned to God on the last day he was alive. I have to take that and trust that my dad, even though this was never the outcome we anticipated, my dad was ready for whatever was coming. I can only think of how happy he must be now to be with the God that he has loved for so long.

I am going to miss my dad. I am going to miss knowing that I can call him when I need help building something. I am going to miss arguing with him about basketball being a superior sport to baseball. I am going to miss him only watching recorded Dodger games because he hates commercials. I am going to miss getting to record his reactions to amazing things that happen in those games because I know about them before he does. I am going to miss him making pork soup when it rains. I am going to miss his awful taste in clothes. I am going to miss how much he loved Boone. I am going to miss the only person who would ever call him Boonedoggle. I am going to miss hugging my dad when I needed him. I am going to miss knowing that every glass of wine I drank in front of him made him so upset. I am going to miss taking videos of him falling asleep in inappropriate places. I am going to miss trying to get him to eat Thai food but never succeeding. I am going to miss his voice. I am going to miss singing hymns with him. I am going to miss just about everything about him, whether I liked it or not.

I now live in a world where I won’t get to have my dad walk me down the aisle at my wedding. I won’t get to have a father/daughter dance to Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle which he demanded to be the song back when I was a child. I won’t get to introduce him to his grandkids. None of us will. That is truly something I don’t think I will ever get over. My dad would have made the best granddad in the world. He had so much to share and teach and so much love to give and that’s now gone. I know my family will do their best to make up for what has been lost and any child that is brought into this family will feel loved beyond words, but there will be something that is missing, and that is him.

I hope that we, as a family can continue to love him and celebrate him every single day. I hope my mom always has her wedding ring and his to know how much he loved her and that after 32 years together, they always will be together. I hope my sister knows she was always his favorite daughter. (it was obvious and I am ok with it) I hope my brothers know that they made him so proud. They were his world and he watched them grow up, play sports and become men with so much love and excitement for their futures. They both remind me of him in different ways and I’m so blessed to have them forever.

I know my family will get through this. We have come together and loved each other harder in the last week than ever before. We will be able to stand back up and live what seems like a “normal” life again. Nothing will ever feel completely normal ever again but we can get as close to it as possible and feel ok. I will love my dad and keep his memory alive for the rest of my life. I hope everyone who reads this tells their parents, siblings, loved ones and friends how much they love them as often as possible.

The very last text I sent to my dad before he was gone was, “I love you dad, I am praying for you.” Which honestly, I really thought seeing that his non-church going daughter was praying for him would have been enough to save him, but God had other plans. I’ll be here waiting to see what those are.

Also, please wear a mask.

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