Two Years

Wow, two years seems like such a long time, and yet today it feels like time has stood still. In the past two years Gabe and I have bought our first home, gotten two sweet dogs, started TTC, and stopped TTC when cysts were discovered. I have gotten a second job. Poor DH lost his job but, God be praised, should be starting a new one this week. Friends have divorced and one is getting remarried in October. I have lost one friend when she decided she didn’t want to have her life anymore. My family and I have drifted apart while my in-laws have truly become my family. My life has changed in two years.

It began two years ago today when I got the call. My father had passed away, he was gone. I have written about this before (My Dad) so I won’t go over all that took place again. It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through, the darkest time in my life. I still don’t feel that dark time has passed or that I am “over it” or “past it”, as some people think one should be. There are days I think of my father and smile and other days just a song on the radio brings the tears, hot and fresh streaming down my cheeks. Today is a crying day.

As time goes on I know it will get easier and part of me longs for that. The other part thinks that’s insane. If it’s easier then I don’t miss him as much, I don’t love him like I should, I should hurt forever. Of course that’s not true at all but the thoughts and feelings are there nonetheless. Right now I’m in a stage that time isn’t helping. Right now time is my enemy. The more time that goes by the longer my daddy has been gone. As the days pass it’s just one more day since I saw his face, since I hugged his neck, since I smelled his smell, or since I heard him say my name. They may seem like such small things but when they’re gone they become so much more important than you can imagine.

There has been a new song on the radio in the last few weeks. I’m a big country music fan (even if Gabe does call it “hillbilly music”, I’m just a country girl at heart) and Tim McGraw is one of my favorites. He has a new song out called “Live Like You Were Dying”. Every time I hear it I think of my dad. He was told at only 43 years old that he was in kidney failure and that if he didn’t receive a kidney transplant in the next few years he wouldn’t survive. Over that time he did as he pleased. He looked up old friends. He and I became even closer. He went hunting and bought guns (he loved to collect them, now something I cherish more than words could ever express). He did things that made him happy and I’m glad for that. I will forever think of him when I hear this song.

Live Like You Were Dying (Tim McGraw)

He said I was in my early forties with a lot of life before me
When a moment came that stopped me on a dime
And I spent most of the next days looking at the x-rays
Talking bout the options and talking bout sweet time
I asked him when it sank in that this might really be the real end
How’s it hit you when you get that kinda news?
Man what’d you do?

And he said
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying
And he said someday I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dying.

He said I was finally the husband that most the time I wasn’t
And I became a friend a friend would like to have
And all the sudden going fishin’ wasn’t such an imposition
And I went three times that year I lost my dad
Well I finally read the good book
And I took a good long hard look
At what I’d do if I could do it all again

And then
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying
And he said someday I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dying.

Like tomorrow was a gift and you got eternity to think about what to do with it
What could you do with it?
What did I do with it?
What would I do with it?

Sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And then I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
And I watched an eagle as it was flying
And he said someday I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dying.

To live like you were dying

To live like you were dying

To live like you were dying

To live like you were dying

I’m thankful my dad got a chance to live like he wanted. My father lived for over two years knowing that time wasn't on his side. I don't want to take the time I'm given for granted. I miss my father and will until the day I leave this earth but I want to embrace my blessings like my father did and make him proud. We are not promised tomorrow and I don't know what the next two years will bring but I am thankful for the sweet time we have and all the things we can do with it.