It has taken me a while to reach this point of readiness. To write about my father's death. On August 23, 2011 I sat with him and held his hand in the last hours of his life. I saw the brief look of what? Surprise, pleading, love, relief? on his face as he took his last breath. I felt he wanted to tell me one more time how much I meant to him and how proud he was of me, as he has done these last few years after he learned of what my life was really like before Shawn. And how much he loved me. When we were alone for a few moments I tried to tell him all of the things that I wouldn't get another chance at - how I was glad he had come out here, how sorry I was for the times when I was tired and didn't spend much time with him, how sorry I was that he wasn't able to stay in his own home for the last months of his life. I promised to take care of Andre, his dog, and to take him home to be next to Mickie, who passed away six years before he did.
Now I walk into his room and I wonder if there is still someone there. I tell him I hope that he found Mickie when he left us. I think he did. In the spring I will go to Texas, to the town where he was born when the bluebonnets are in bloom and I will leave a small part of him where he began and the rest will go home, where he will finally be next to Mickie again. But of course he already is.
