One

One.

One day turned into many and, somehow, one year has come and gone without dad in it.

I’ve gotten a lot of advice in this past year. Some of it was truly helpful, and some of it felt impossible. But some of it I heard time and time again – particularly that the first year is the hardest.

And they were so right. And wrong.

Things moved quickly when dad was diagnosed. He’d been having bouts with indigestion for months, but it would come and go so mildly that he thought nothing of it. Maybe a stomach bug. Maybe a lingering flu. Maybe.

Then one weekend he got very sick, violently ill. Sick enough that for as doctor-averse as he was, he made an appointment. That was on a Monday. On Tuesday they scheduled an x-ray, and the results so alarming, they scheduled him for surgery to remove a tumor first thing Thursday morning. Life changes very quickly that way.

The night before his surgery, I felt the weight of what was coming – I just didn’t want to admit it. I told myself over and over again that things would be fine, as I watched the sunset melt over the Chicago horizon from my balcony. And when I went to sleep, I prayed. I prayed that this wouldn’t be the last night I would lay my head down knowing life as it always was. I let my mind turn over comforting stories and statistics in an effort to put it at ease. I lied to myself in the only way I knew how, that if I couldn’t picture life without him in it, that it simply couldn’t be.

When my phone rang the next morning, once dad was out of surgery, and my brother’s voice broke over the line, I knew. I was already flying home later that day to attend a friend’s wedding over the weekend, and moved it up as early as I could to be with everyone. It was one of the longest, loneliest days. I shuttled back and forth to the bathroom several times while we waited to board, falling apart in some dirty stall in Midway airport. I forced a smile to flight attendants when boarding the plane and hid behind my sunglasses. And when mom picked me up I cried the whole way to the hospital. We both did.

He was starting to come out of anesthesia when we got to the room. When we stood by his bedside he looked up and asked the question we didn’t want to answer. “Did they find something?”

The next year that followed was a blurred mess of doctor appointments, hospital stays and the agonizing slow down of dad’s life.

Although there were happy moments mixed in there too, I try not to think about it.

I especially don’t like to go back to those final days. I haven’t made peace with them, and the past year hasn’t done much to remove me from them. The pressure of his hand when he’d squeeze the fingers that I’d curl tightly into his palm. The hum of machines and weighted steps of hurried nurses throughout the ICU. The look of dad’s face when we did all we could do for him – get him home – as he looked around and took his last breath. Everything is still so painfully vivid.

So I try to bury those memories. Dad wouldn’t want to be remembered that way.

Everything since has been experiencing life in a foreign, unwelcome way. A year of facing long-standing traditions without dad there. Of going through birthdays, and holidays and important days with a weary heart. And the awful everydays that sneak up. The random Tuesday evening when all I want to do is call the house and hear his voice. Or a sunny Sunday morning when I wish we could share a quiet moment on the deck.

See, what people don’t tell you – is that time hurts as much as it heals. That even though the natural rhythm of life has dragged me forward, the growing time that’s passed makes it more permanent. That even though a year is behind me, a lifetime without him still stretches ahead.

For a long time, I was intensely angry. It just took up residence where so much joy and gratitude had been. And, sure, there’s still some there – but it’s receded over the months. Months where amazing people have come in and reminded me how wonderful life can be. Family, friends, even perfect strangers – they’ve helped break through even the most gloomy of days.

It’s hard to explain how I feel. It can still be such a tumultuous swell of emotions. But at its core, I just really, really miss my father. Its an ache that never stops, but my hope is that maybe as life tumbles on, other joys will help ebb some of it away.

But what I wouldn’t give for just one more. One more year. One more day. One more conversation. One more hug. One more moment.

One.