pre family visit

First, let me get something off my chest..... Does anyone out there read this stuff i send off into the great electronic void? Just wondering, because if you all do... then why are there no comments? I know, you are all laughing so hard at what i say it is impossible to type... BUT there is a little thing at the bottom of these posts, that says "comment"... if you click on it... this whole blog thing becomes interactive.... and well... more fun. And everyone likes fun? right?


Ok...
Now to the meat of it. I am preparing to head South to help mom for a few days and visit with Dad and the rest of the family. I do this with a mixture of emotions. On one hand i am very glad to see the family, and to be back in CV and all that..... but seeing Dad is harder and harder to do. Each time we come back for a visit, the changes in his mental state are more and more evident. It breaks my heart to watch it happen. In photos and in person he looks sooooo good! It is where you can't see, that he has the problems.

When we were kids.... my dad would always ask us the names of people and the names of their kids before he would call them to talk to them about a job. That way when someone answered the phone he had a good shot of getting the right name. He always liked to remember things and people. When we were cleaning out the garage this May, we found lots of Memory Booster exercises, "10 easy steps to never forget".... all that sort of stuff. Mom said that even way back, he had told her he didn't want to be "old and forget things" ... It is ironic to me, that the one thing he didn't want to have happen, is the one thing that has been taken from him...
The other part that makes these visits suck... ( yes mom, i used the truck driver word again ) is that i have to leave. I get there, and get into a routine, and i can clearly see how much help mom and amy need, and then i have to go, and i feel like i am deserting them all when they need so much help!..... And when i go, i never know if the next time i see MOM or AMY on my cell phone, if it is going to be the call that tells me dad passed away... and that i missed it. And then i will have to get on a plane or pack the car and go down to a house without him. And somedays, i am not sure how i will be able to do that. When the time comes, it is going to be hard to wait until heaven to see him again.

My dad is HUGE.. larger than life, a great teacher and a consistant disiplinarian. No matter what i did in my crazy life. Dad was always a constant. He is so much of the reason i am who i am today. When i was in the midst of living my own life, and failing at it miserably, i might add.... I will never forget what i stumbled across one day. I was a bartender then.... drinkin and partying, well... just cuz i could. I knew my parents didn't approve of what i was doing.... but it wasn't like there were arguments about it... One day i stopped home for a visit... and dad had been doing a bible study lesson. It was about teaching a child in the way that it should go, and they will not depart from it..... and softly written in the side margin was... "i am praying this for Julie". even then it jumped off the page at me. It didn't make me change anything.... i went back to the bar that night to work, ... still did stupid stuff.... LOTS of stupid stuff. It probably took 15 years for his prayer to be answered... but i am glad and grateful that he prayed it in the first place. That he knew his daughter, and that he loved me enough to pray it. As i sit and write this, i realize i never told him that i read that paper he had set aside when i came to visit that day. I never thanked him for that display of unconditional love.... I am just glad that he DID get to see his prayer answered, even if he wouldn't understand the thank you if i were to tell him now.

Well that certianly came out of nowhere.... now i am sitting at the computer with tears streaming down my face and a snotty nose.... eeewww....
WELL.... i need some tissue... so i will leave you now, and keep you all posted on my visit to CA.