A year ago last night, is when my life officially changed. The night I got a phone call that Dad was in the hospital.. collasped. No one would tell me how he was or if he'd be ok. Fly out on the next flight. I didnt' know how I would feel last night.. but I remembered more than I thought I would.  More than I wanted to.  It was like reliving that horrible night all over again. Then I didn't know that that would be the last month I would have with him. That for 2 weeks he was fine, and that 2 weeks later he would be gone. 

I was so hoping Christmas would be great..like Thanksgiving was. But it was hell. Extremely stressful, and painful. Wrapping presents in this big empty house, I think I cried every day I was there. Doing all the things he would have done.  Mommy, sis and I were opening christmas presents, looking at the tree, and I couldn't help it. Lost it, starting sobbing. The house is so empty without him.  He's gone.  Mommy's sitting next to me and asks me; "baby, what's wrong?" When she calls me Baby, that's how I know that in her alzsheimers state, she knows it's me.  I just said, "I miss him."  Didn't want to upset her... didn't want to get into it... She looks at me and says; "Oh baby, I miss him too. I think about him every day. I still love him."  Oh god I think my heart broke into a million pieces. This was the first time I heard her talk about him, and knowing he was gone.  A few hours before, she asked where he was. "Where is he?"  I said he wasn't here... then hours later, she tells me this. I started sobbing and my mommy hugged me.. I told her that I was so happy that she wasn't sad... She said she wasn't... This man she's known for 60 years is gone.. and in her mind she's not sad.. Later at dinner, we're sitting there eating in silence.. she looks into the kitchen. "Do you hear that?" Hear what I ask? "Footsteps. Someone's walking in the kitchen." My sis and I just look at each other..we heard nothing. In my heart, i hope she heard dad's footsteps.. shuffling along like he always did... to her he's still here..

Little things like that both break my heart and gives me comfort.

I've had more dreams of him.. which just make my heart soar.. each dream I get a bit more and more.. The last dream I enter the house to see them all there in the hallway... Daddy's smiling his big grin at me.. he comes to me and hugs me. Oh god, I can feel his arms around me, I know it's him. I feel him. It's been a year.. and now I feel him. He started to say something, I think he started to say I love you.. but I was waking up... the shock of feeling him in my arms woke me up.... and again, I feel that he's happy. Don't know what it meant to see everyone in hallway.. mom and sis too... maybe he was trying to say thank you for taking care of them.. don't really know.  But I ask him everyday to come back in a dream... please come back..

A friend asked me how it is like now. I told her, in the beginning, there's so much pain that you can barely breathe.  Now, there's a pain in the middle of your heart, that's more an ache.. but you know in your heart in will be there till the day you die...because it just is.