I've been expecting these great 'first' milestones without my dad to be unbearable on the days of holidays or special events. But I've found that the anxiety and sadness seems to be greatest in the days leading up to a particular day or holiday, rather than during the actual 'day of'. I'm trying to figure out why that is.
For example the day and night before my dad's birthday, my mom had posted an album of pictures to Facebook to honor his birthday and it seemed to hit me most then. I thought about him and how much he loved his birthday and loved to have all the attention, (that may be where I got that from), and it made me so sad to know that he'll never get to have another birthday again. His last birthday was 10 days before his cancer diagnosis, so there was no way for him to even know that it was his last birthday. It makes me wish I was there. One of the many reasons I get so angry nowadays.
I was thinking about what I wanted to do to celebrate his birthday and didn't come up with anything. I felt so awful about it, but at the same time I was putting up a mental block about it. I couldn't come up with anything no matter how hard I tried. His birthday, November 13th, finally rolled around and I'm surprised to say that I wasn't a complete wreck. I looked through my dad's pictures of birthday's past and it brought a smile to my face. I thought about him and smiled all day.
.jpg)
Dad's 50th Birthday. So handsome :)
The anticipation of Thanksgiving also seemed to be worse than the day of, although I did have moments throughout the day that I wished we were back home celebrating Thanksgiving with my family with our usual party and my dad cooking the Turkey. Thanksgiving was an okay day as a whole, but it just didn't feel like Thanksgiving. Many of our usual foods weren't cooked. No party with wine and hors d'ouvres, and everyone dressed to the nine's. Thanksgiving was always a special day where I would get up at the crack of dawn with my dad to stuff the Turkey and get it in the oven for when people would come over around 2 for the celebration. He would always periodically take the turkey out to baste it and everyone would gather around to get a taste of the stuffing. We would also do our family picture on Thanksgiving before everyone came over.
I kept wondering if I would ever have a Thanksgiving again that actually felt like it.
Thanksgiving
