My Final Goodbye

Dad,

Yesterday we said goodbye to you, 19 days after you took your own life. I guess we said goodbye to your body, but not your memory. The day was cold and somewhat cloudy.

I still feel angry at you. I guess I will always have some level of anger towards you. I can't help but think why I couldn't have been enough for you not to do it. Or your other 4 beautiful children. Or you two gorgeous grandchildren. What about your 3rd on the way in 6 short months? You had me to call whenever you wished (and you did, I know) and I told you to come visit. Maybe if I just had pushed a little harder...

But one thing I learned yesterday is that we all have our 'what if' thoughts. Your best friend Jim, who has been your best friend through it all, has those thoughts. Reading letters from co-workers, they too had those thoughts. But the truth is no one is to blame and no one could have done anything different. It is all over now and we can only pick up the pieces and move on.

A lot of people were at your funeral. I heard a lot of "oh my goodness, I remember you when you were this high" as they placed their hands to their knees. I wish I would have gotten to know these people better as I got older. They were a part of your life and I didn't remember very many of them. I actually only remembered very few names and stories that were told by you. I wish I would have gotten to know you better. I wish I would have had more time with you.

I thought a lot about our life together yesterday. I have been thinking a lot about it the last 20 days. It has consumed me. We didn't have a perfect relationship. I know looking back on pictures of my first year of life that you just loved me. I was everything to you. I see how happy you are in those photos and it makes me smile. Knowing that I brought so much joy to your life makes me happy. I haven't seen you that happy in a long time. You used to smile showing your perfect teeth back then. I have only seen 2 photos where you were really smiling like that in recent years. One of them was when we danced our father-daughter dance at my wedding almost 5 years ago. I knew that for those few moments you were so happy to be dancing with me. To think, I almost let my immaturity get in the way of us dancing. I was angry with you for a lot of my life. While I always knew that you loved me, I felt abandoned. I felt that you didn't care about us. I hated that you moved so far away. It's all water under the bridge right now. And I'm so thankful that I let the past go in recent years. I am so glad that we have become so close in these last 5 years.

I will try to always remember only the good times. I will remember our visits to Florida and Missouri over the past 20 years. I will remember how we used to snuggle on your recliner until I was almost too big to be able to do so. I will remember how you taught me how to horseback ride. I will remember our multiple Destin trips in recent years--and our pontoon boat adventures. I will remember how on the many work trips to DC we would simply just hang out. On one of those trips in November of 2007, I will remember how you cried when we showed you the ultrasound picture of AJ. I will remember how you met AJ for the first time in St. Louis for your 50th birthday. We stayed up drinking a glass of wine catching up. I will always remember how much you loved John and just thought he was the 'coolest'. And I will remember how, just 6 weeks ago, you cried again when I told you we were expecting again.

You are gone now and it isn't fair. It just isn't fair. They gave you a proper military ceremony yesterday. It was complete with the flag folding, flag presentation, playing of taps, and three rifle volley. It was rough to make it through that. They presented me with the flag. And I will frame it and hang it to always remember you.

Love,

Your daughter Nicole