Reading the last thing that I wrote is somewhat surreal and disheartening. I read it and just want to kick myself! I KNEW I should have flown out there that weekend! I KNEW IT! And yet, I didnt because I suppose I thought the money saved was more important and selfishly the energy saved from all the traveling was "more sacred" to me. I hate myself for not going...that would have been the last time I would have seen him. His last weekend that he took easy and rested...I could have talked with him and spent time with him. Instead, I get to live with seeing him in September...which was fantastic, but so long ago...and speaking to him exactly one week to the day that he died. I guess I can find some solice in knowing that my last words to him were "I love you Dad, I hope you know that". I also knew I should have called him two days before he died. I DID call for him two days before he died, but I got my older brother instead...as my Dad wasnt home.

I realize that it has been two months, and I am sure many people are thinking "Rachael, get over it...you have other things to think about". I guess in some ways I have "gotten over it". After all, the day after the funeral was over, we flew back to Louisville...and I havent HAD to deal with life without my Dad because for the last 5 years, I have been living life without him in my every day life. I didnt see him every day, I didnt talk to him every day...maybe once a week, and sometimes we would go weeks without picking up the phone to call. I didnt have to go home to his mail, his clothes, his smell, his stashed chocolate bars, the phone calls, the money crap like my Mom and brothers did. I feel mixed emotions because of this. On one hand, I feel guilty because my Louisville life hasnt changed all that much, aside from the void I feel in his phone calls. On the other hand, I wish very much (and yes maybe some more guilt) that I was more a part of the mourning process at home, in Arizona. I WISH I were there to help my Mom out with everything. I WISH I had the financial freedom (and job freedom) to help Melissa out with the boys while Matthew is away. I just wish I was closer, and could offer more. As it is now, I call three or four times a week, get an update on my dad's "estate" and thats it. Its to the point now, where they are all doing better and blessings are coming in...and I feel, selfishly, like "wait, what about me? When do I really get to be sad?" or "When do I get to feel the void of all this?". I feel like I just have not had any time to sit and think about it. A week after he died, WHAM! I am pregnant...which is great...but it is such an extreme emotion in the opposite direction that it has been hard to wrap my head around each event. In a perfect world...I would have the opportunity to focus on each thing individually and process them without feeling guilty about not giving the other deserved emotional attention. BUT, in a perfect world...I guess I wouldnt lose my Dad this early either.

None of this is like I had ever imagined it, if one can imagine stuff like this. My fathers death feels like its "another life". I am angry at myself for moving away, or at least not moving back. I am angry at myself for some decisions I made that I KNOW disappointed my Dad. How could I not have listened to him? How could I have just thrown away our relationship for my own selfish satisfaction? Dont get me wrong, we had a fairly good relationship...I guess. I wish it was as strong as it was when I was in High School and College, but I did feel as if we were getting back to that point, only as real adults.

So two months ago today, I was on an airplane to Arizona for my father's death. That was THE longest plane ride I have ever had to endure. Two months later my entire family, aside from me, is going through all my Dad's things. It sounds so "whoa is me" and pathetic and "all about me". Its not, its really not...I am glad that my Mom has her sons there to support her and do this with her. I yearn to be as helpful, yet feel trapped by distance and the reality of employment which won't allow me to do so.