I'm sure I'm not the only who has experienced this......but have you ever started thinking about something, only to wonder how in the hell you arrived at that thought??
It happened to me last night in the pool.
I was remembering pieces of my day....emails I wrote at work, conversations I had throughout the day, things I wrote or read on facebook......and that's when I remembered writing a 'happy birthday' note to one of my teammates from my 2nd year with NET.....which then brought back a memory of the last time I saw that teammate.....
I had been living in Houston, TX - and I, along with two teammates from that same 2nd year team, were driving up to St Paul for a NET Alumni reunion....the timing worked for everyone, and we were able to make a very short stop in Kansas to see this other teammate.....
The visit was short and sweet, and we continued on our way to Minnesota.
Almost as soon as we arrived in St Paul, I was told my dad was in the hospital and not doing well. It's a bit of a long story, but my dad had not been well for a very long time, and I was almost constantly preparing for his death.....I had even picked out two separate funeral outfits in an effort to plan ahead for the inevitable.
But that's not what was filling my memory last night. I was actually thinking about the last time we talked on the phone. My teammates and I were scheduled to leave Houston on Thursday (that might be right - I mean, it was 1996 for crying out loud - my memory is good, but it ain't perfect).....ok, as I was saying, we were scheduled to leave Houston on Wednesday or Thursday (do you like how I just sort of tossed 'Wednesday' into the picture?).....and my dad asked if I could make a stop in Madison, WI to see him.....and I said we couldn't - it was too far out of the way....and that was the truth - Madison is like 250 miles east (southeast, really) of the twin cities, and we were coming from Texas.....driving to Madison wasn't going to be a possibility. It was just too far out of the way.
And I can remember how sad he sounded on the phone.....sad that I'd be so close and yet still unable to see him.
And I remember thinking he'd get over it.
But then.....he died. On Saturday.
Don't get me wrong - this isn't some sort of sob story about how I was a bad daughter who couldn't even manage to make a simple request of "can you stop here for a quick visit?" work out.....it was actually just good for my heart to remember talking to him on the phone that day. Because whenever I think about my dad, I don't tend to think about....or remember....the phone calls.
I guess I'm grateful for those quiet moments when I can accidentally travel through my own memories.....and I'm damn grateful I've managed to let go of the guilt that was unknowingly trapped inside my body for a lot of years following my dad's death.
And as crazy as it sounds, I'm grateful to have gone through that experience. It sobered up the concept of death for me. Death was no longer just a possibility.....it was a reality. Death sucks....and it's hard....and it's sad....and it hurts like hell, but it's not something any of us can escape.
It lives in that giant folder in my heart called Important Life Lessons.
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