Love is Real.

Love is real. I have truly loved and this is how I know...

It has been 2 months and 5 days since my dad has left and in no way has it gotten any easier. I find myself wanting to call him almost daily- actually picking up the phone, dialing the first few numbers, seeing his name pop up in the caller id and i realize no one will be on the other end. I hit the red phone button to exit and i feel what i can only describe as heartbreak.

A huge rolling lump rises from the pit of my stomach and becomes lodged next to my heart because it has grown so much since he left this Earth. All air leaves my lungs and I feel captured in time- not past, not future, not present. An ache comes over my chest because instinctively I should inhale but I can't. All I feel is a wrinkle at my brow, a quiver on my cupid's bow and a small whimper creeps from the back of my throat..I'm alone. I want to fall to ground but I become so angry at my frustration that I can not change what has happened that I stand in despair. He is gone and there is nothing- NOTHING- I can do to change my situation, the circumstance, our reality. I want him here- I want to feel him near- why am I so filled with fear! My eyelids can't damn! these tears and they begin to overflow my eyes so much that I am visually blurred- an ironic reality to what i feel inside...hazed. I am heart broken. Only this time- my love isn't returning, coming back for me. He is gone and I am here.

A small but warm light begins to light my clouded thoughts and I remember...
our last father, daughter moment. I laid my right cheek on his left hand, as he laid there engulfed in sheets and blankets. He lifted his hand and began stroking my head. Forehead to pony tail- "Dad, I love you too" "Please just let us have this moment forever" I promised....everything.
He loved me too and in those last few precious moments of life on this Earth together I learned true gratuity and pride. I gave my father all my love and he, he gave me his life.

In the last few weeks of my father's life I had finally done something right by him and more importantly, I showed him I was a Big Girl. I the little girl he prayed for grew into the woman he worked for. Everything I felt I acted on because it was as though he was telling me what to do- it was the roots he had instilled helping me be strong enough to carry us both through to the end.

My father died at 51 from Cancer. We had no idea my father had cancer. He was admitted for pneumonia which was later diagnosed as a complication from stage 5 cancer of the abdominal. He was my father, a husband, a lover, provider, grandfather, giver, comic, humble, Dine', proud, Native American, honest, realist, sports fanatic, gambling, human man.

Love is Real...I know because I am heart broken. Through the broken pieces I feel the warmth of his memory and the happiness he still brings me from his presence in my life as my father.