Let’s try this one more time…

I am waiting around at the car dealership right now, getting an oil change.  

You have probably been wondering where I have been the past few weeks.  I sort of started a “let’s live your best life” series on the blog and then disappeared.  Well, there is no way to say this but to just explain what happened, hope you understand and move forward.

On February 25th, my father passed away.  He was sick.  But I wasn’t expecting him to go on that day.  It was a little bit of a shock.  I thought he would have had more time.  I am not sure that I have processed what happened yet.  It happened so quickly when it did.  In fact, I know I haven’t. I have kind of been walking around like a robot, “taking care of things” and keeping my mind busy with “tasks”.  Maybe I am at the “denial” part of the grieving stage which is why I am endeavoring to keep busy so that I  don’t have time to stop and think about what happened.

Anyway, that’s where I am at right now.  

I am going to try to move forward with this “best life” series in 2019, not just for my inter-web readers, but for me too.  There probably is no better time than now to “try to live your best life” and work on happiness.  Maybe the proverbial “universe” knew what I was going to need this year more than I did when it inspired me to focus on happiness.  “Girl, you are going to have to have to go on the mother of all adventures to find happiness this year.”  I fully acknowledge that it will likely be a struggle, but I am going to work through it, together with you guys.

I keep getting interrupted by a flood of memories of my father from my childhood and I am just stunned when I think about how so many years could have gone by.  How can so much have happened so long ago and it still feels like it was just yesterday?  How does time work that way?  One day you are a kid, sitting in the back of the car with your Barbies on a road trip to Canada with your dad driving and your mom changing up Greek 8-track tapes, and the next I am here, an adult at the car dealership, alone.

Memories are funny things.  I keep having Marcel Proust type of memories.  If any of you took French in college you know what I mean.  The guy wrote a novel on how a madeleine cookie sparked a memory of “things past” that lasted 7 volumes and 3,200 pages.

The other day my friend came over for a visit and wanted a bourbon whiskey with ginger ale.  I didn’t have any ginger ale, but for some reason, I had 7-up.  We usually do not have any soda on hand.  She asked, “What’s this drink called again, with the 7-up?”  I said, “It’s a highball.”  The memory of my dad washed over me and warmed me like a sip of bourbon whiskey.  It was just a silly little cocktail.  But it was my dad’s drink.  It was what he always ordered when out at dinner.

Funny, how something so small can be so powerful.  Grief can be weird.

A few days later, I was at my mom’s house with my daughter and she said she was going to make lemony roasted chicken and potatoes for dinner.  It kind of stopped me in my tracks.  That was my dad’s specialty.  He made that meal better than anyone, including my mom.  Shhhh.  Don’t tell my mom I said that.

I think I am most upset that my daughter lost her best friend, her “pappou-i”. She still looks for him at my mom’s house. I think I do too.

I don’t know.  Is he sending messages from the other side?  That he is still here, around us, watching over us?  He certainly was a force in life.  And I won’t forget him.  I can still feel him around, hear his voice in my head, constantly giving me advice that I never asked for, but will need later. LOL.  Even here at the car dealership, I think back to when I was a kid and he would take me with him to get the oil changed in his car.  And then we would go for ice cream.  Which is what I am probably going to do after I am done here.

#keepgriefweird.

I will see you guys next week, I hope with the next installment of “best life 2019”.

Bye now.

Kallie