I-am-happy.

Song suggestion:  I'll fly Away by Jars of Clay and Sarah Kelly

  Lately I have noticed happiness has been sort of seeping back into me.  I haven't dwelt on the last five years of my life as much these past few months.   These days I will be carrying about my normal routine  and suddenly realize, hey I am kind of happy.  I never say it say out loud, I am gun shy I confess.  If I say it out loud, as silly as it sounds, I feel like I will be jinxed.  

  I am not sure really how to grasp the last five years.  Not sure how to document them.    Not sure which memories I want to pick out of each year to keep and which ones I will file in the archives.  Everyday it happens where a memory is triggered and I am taken back to a specific moment.. whether it's good or bad I really don't have much of an option.

  This week I had a very special memory, which was triggered by a song... that started playing as I was thinking to myself..

 "Hey I am not anxious or miserable, I'm not crabby or sad.. I am happy."

  I-am-happy.  Three simple little words that most people take for granted.  I can say that with all respect because I am one of those people.  I was smiling to myself when suddenly Dad's song began to play on the radio.  Normally I get a very tight knot in my stomach when this song plays because I think of Dad's funeral.  It was sung so beautifully, but all I remember is being bent over in the front pew sobbing as quietly as I could, while it was sung.  So therefore.. sadness is what filled me when this song had played on the radio.  

  Not this time though.. this time I smiled and turned it up instinctively which sort of caught me off guard.  As the music got louder suddenly the real memories about this song hit me.   This was me and Dad's song.  It was ours.  

   Dad and I were on our way to Sioux Center to get a DVD player put in his new vehicle.. Justin and I had recently purchased an Explorer that had a DVD player in it.. Dad was jealous and he went out bought himself a new vehicle and had to install a DVD player in it also.  Dad did the same thing a couple years earlier when we bought a black Escape, he went out and got a white one. Mom always got so mad at him!  :)  Ok so where was I... So on our way to Sioux Center my favorite song came on and I cranked it up loud.

 

 "Dad if I die before you I want this song played at my funeral."  I said to him seriously.

 "Nae, when I die this will be played at MY funeral."  he replied.

  I never forgot that moment.  I am not good with exact dates, but I know Dad was aggressively fighting his battle with cancer at the time.  I am not sure how many months later it was, but it was clear that Dad was losing his battle.   I remember Dad, Mom and I had met with a Hospice nurse and she basically told us that within a matter of weeks Dad would be to weak to be doing anything but sleep.  That he would be highly medicated and probably unable to speak and if he did it would require an immense amount of energy.   She was accurate.

  I remember feeling really helpless the week before my Dad died.  He was in pain.  He was suffering, and we had to sit and watch it all.  I racked my mind thinking of special things I could do for him when it hit me.. our song. He can at least listen to music.  I raced to Walmart and bought it and dropped it off at the house then rushed off to work.  My older sister Cora called me crying that night from my parents house.  She asked me if Mom had told me what happened, she told me that Mom kept on trying to put the head phones on Dad.  Dad kept taking them off and shaking his head until Mom said.. 

 "Tom.. Nae got this for you."  

  Dad let her put the head phones on, and mom turned on our song.   Cora and Mom went into the kitchen and peaked around the corner and cried, as they watched him raise his hands in the air and actually attempt to sing along as he cried.   I would rather listen to Dad's version of  "I'll fly Away" any day.  Unfortunately I will have to wait for that.  

  You may think this is a sad memory, but to me it's happy.  It has taken me awhile to find it happy, and this might not make much sense but it's a different sort of happy.  It was this moment my dad and I shared briefly that turned into another moment that Cora and Mom got to share, that turned into a moment that we all shared together as a family at Dad's funeral.   That to me, is a memory worth pulling out of those archives and keeping.