remembering

Oh no, it's another journal bringing up 9-11-01. What are your plans for the day? I want to stay away from my sucky office as much as possible. I have a luncheon planned with an ex-worker at "Q", where I used to work with tomorrow. I thought for some reason I need to be with the people I was with last year on the day of remembering. But I think what is getting me right now is the leading up to the day effect. Already the news is covering so much of last year, and to me, it's like slow motion. Prepping us for that moment. Getting ready for the memories to come flashing through. It's something I do almost every year. Remembering what I did those days, hours, minutes for the moment of impact. The after-math of the event and how I have survived.

I consider my dad's death the same way. I thank God that my dad didn't die in a way that his past is brought up on the news every year. In my head, it's headline news, but to be a part of something like 9-11, the Columbine killings or the Oklahoma bombing, I'm grateful I live in my own little hell in April every year. I can't remember what I was doing 9-10-01. Seems like our memories of the day before or the hours up to that moment are just washed away. When my dad died on a Sunday, for the life of me, I cannot remember the Saturday or the hours leading up to his death. I remember talking to him on Friday. He had sent me some software books and I was learning some cool stuff and I wanted to show him some of the things I could do with the books. I was his long-distance graphic designer. I talked to him daily be it work or family related stuff. I was a stay at home mom with 2 babies, 2 and 1. Had a husband in the service that was out at sea more then he was at home. No difference today.. he still works a late night shift; I still have no husband at night.

Dad didn't sound funny when I talked to him. He was in one of his depressions again and sometimes they would last 1 month, others up to 9 months. I knew to do everything right as well as I could and keep all conversations with him light and airy. Don't bring him down more. He talked to "J" all the time on the phone she was his world. "D" was just a babe still and wouldn't listen to the phone, where with "J" it was a cool thing to do at 2, talking to grandpa. But I don't remember if he talked to her that day. I know he asked about her and we were talking about the Oklahoma bombing. It was their year anniversary and it was on TV. I said I would do some of the text effects in a letter from the books he sent and send it on Monday and we hung up. That would be the last day I ever talked to him again.

I have tried so hard to recall that Sat. and Sun. but can't. We didn't have a lot of money, so we didn't go anywhere. It must have been a quiet weekend. What I do remember - that on Sunday, "B" was talking to his mom and they had been talking for about an hour and it was late at night. Their call was cut off quickly because if I remember right, her cordless phone died and the call was cut off. Seconds later, the phone rings again and it's my sister. Have I talked to dad? No. Not since Friday. Why? He's missing. Missing? Since when? This afternoon. Once again, I don't recall much of the call. I just remember my sister saying she was catching the next flight out in the morning and then we would go from there.

I think because I was so far away, in Virginia, I feel that I was out of the loop on some things. My sister was there from the beginning and I'm not mad at her for it, she was the levelheaded one, better for her to be there anyway. I know that mom had friends come stay with her the night. No one wanted to admit that he might be dead, so we didn't call the police. Or did we? I know that one night at 2:00am in the morning, I called the local police there to see if they heard anything. I happened to get an old school chum on the phone and she tried to handle the situation correctly but at the same time it was like "lets catch up on old times". I know we didn't say much about his disappearance because we felt that if had gone off to do something "stupid" and re-thought it out, we were giving him a chance to not look like a fool and we could all pretend this never happened, and seek treatment for him. He was already under treatment but it seems he might need a heavier aggressive treatment. I don't remember Monday. I do remember a friend of mine who I had told what was going on, coming over and feeding the kids lunch because food was the last thing on my mind. I cried a lot too. It was also the last day I watched "All My Children". A big fan for almost 10 years and when Erica, my idol came on TV and said "problems? You don't know the problems I have" I looked at her and said the same thing to her and turned the TV off. I have never watched AMC again. Have watched from time to time mini-seconds of it and still keep the Erica-Kane chat name at yahoo.. but I can't sit down to watch the show.

I remember late night calls with my mother and sister. Preparing for the worst, hoping for the best. I told them, 'go to McGaffey he's there'. I know it. I feel it. They wouldn't go. Words like suicide was coming to mind. He had told mom that he had wanted to do for a long time, but that was years ago. I hated how his depression grabbed him and made him think there was no hope. By Tuesday morning, a plan of me flying out with the kids for Wednesday was getting in order. We were at a point we had to plan on the worst and things had to be decided and I needed to be home. They went to the police and found a good friend they knew personally and explained the situation. Up till then, it still was secretive. Some of the police were aware of his being gone but they said that if they found him shacked up with a woman, there was nothing they could do. Mid-life crisis does that to a man.

They also went to the newspaper to have a story written up on him and hope that he can be found. With the buddy police officer, a detective if I remember.. dad's license plate and truck had to be turned in. It was a new truck, not 8 weeks old so mom, not knowing this stuff, had to go to the dealership and get the information. Once again, sometime it pays off to live in a small town. Sometimes it doesn't. The guy who sold dad his truck asked why and mom had to explain what was going on. How this part evolved, I'm not sure.. but some of the guys in the dealership heard what was going on and said they had seen dad's truck up at McGaffey over the weekend. The detective was told and they went on their search. Back at the newspaper, mom is now giving a description of dad to the reporter, the owner of the newspaper who thought my father was a son to him, and he hired a private pilot to search the area in McGaffey.

To describe McGaffey - it's a national park. Huge, about a 30-minute drive from home and it has a lot of dirt roads that go off into wilderness. Since I was a baby I have gone to McGaffey every year with my family, sometimes 3 or 5 visits a summer. There is a pond, which used to be a lake there. Never went fishing, but there was always someone fishing there. We never went to the same place to picnic, there were so many neat spots about the place. But in the same token, it was an easy place to get lost if you wanted to. Around 7:00pm at the newspaper, and I'm still out in Virginia at this time, packing. There was a call or something. They told mom and my sister to go back to dad's office and the detectives would meet them there. My sister called me from the office and told me to prepare myself and would call me in seconds. I remember sitting out in the back yard, scared of what I was going to hear. I must have known.. but I guess just hearing the final words, I wasn't so sure yet.

I got the call that so changed my life, I could hear my mother crying and my sister could barely get the words out. He's gone. I don't remember crying. I remember not sleeping, trying to think what his last thoughts were, his last actions, his last image in his eyes. Then the anger would come. Why did you leave? Leave 2 precious grandchildren you loved the world over and loved you back? Leave a wife of 30 years? Leave 2 daughters who loved you more then you would ever know? Why? It was almost a month later, when we saw one of the doctors that we found out what was the moment that made his life turn. A doctor had pinpointed that he suffered from 3 types of depression and as he rolled out of one, he went into the other. He would forever be on medication and there would be very little outcome of the depression. It was just too much for him to handle.

And so with that week so etched into my mind. Like last year, the year before and the year before that.. I try to remember.. what was I doing that day before he left? Why didn't I feel something that moment he left this earth? Did the wives, mothers, fathers, children feel their loved ones leave the moment it happened last year? Do they try to remember the moments before? After?

My mother and sister say I was able to cope with his death much better in a way they were not (is there a right way or a wrong way to cope?)... 9 weeks earlier, I had gone out to visit mom and dad. I was home for 6 weeks and spent some time with them. During that trip, one Sunday, mom and I went to church. "J" was getting ready to have surgery on her teeth the next day so emotions were high. During the service, and I don't talk about this often because I think it borders the weird side.. I was standing and singing a song with my mom. This is the church I was raised in, my children were baptized in, and I know it inside out. It was a regular Sunday so there wasn't a lot of decoration on the alter. But within seconds, my eyes blurred up and when I looked away to clear my eyes, I looked back and there were flowers, tons of flowers. Baskets of all types, colors of all types. I remember closing my eyes and opening them and there was a brown box in the front. Then as if in a dream, the whole church congregation was gone and all I could see was my mother's friends. All the ladies who my mother knew well at the front of the church. I tried to make sense of it and couldn't. I looked at my mom because by this time I was crying. She smiled at me and saw me crying and she held me and said everything would be all right. She assumed I was crying over the surgery and was nervous. My only thought was, I'm going to lose you soon. Since then, I haven't had visions. I don't remember when I told my mother and sister about what happened, I just know I can't tell my sister about dreams I have, she gets scared. This wasn't a dream. I wasn't sleeping. When I flew back to Virginia, I hugged my mother so tight and now I wish I could remember if I had hugged my father as well. Mom and sis say that I was prepared for the death, but wasn't ready to find out it was dad. But sure enough, at the service, flowers. Tons of flowers in colors and there was all my mother's friends supporting her.

It has been 6 years since he died. The first 3 years were the hardest. I thought I wouldn't make it the first year without hearing his voice once a day. But as it comes to major events in our lives, like tomorrow.. I try to remember. Try to remember what I was doing the day before. The day of. The day after. Like so many people in the years to come, I will try to remember his voice; it's so far away now. His face, it's so soft and fuzzy now. His laughter. His kindness. His suffering and remember that it wasn't a selfish act that he left but a cry for help that he had to go.