Death never takes a holiday

Maybe it's the passing of time, 14 years have gone by since Jonno died, but I don't seem to recollect getting hit by his death as hard as this. Then again, Jonno was only the best mate in the entire world, Dad was, well, my Dad. I suspect Ghoti is probably harboring similar thoughts to mine, and I'm sorry if this is tough for you to read. I know it's only been a few months since Dad passed away, so I'm still really coming to terms with his death, but a part of me can't help wondering, what if it never gets any easier? What if it's always going to be like this?

I don't want to regret spending the time here in the U.S. with Liz, but part of me still does. Liz doesn't have the best of relationships with her parents (she's an only child so siblings don't factor into it) and when I look at the three of them and how they get on (or don't) I wonder why we spent the last 7 years here instead of with my parents and my sisters, who I was relatively close to. I'm making more money here than I could have made in Australia, and a lot of that is because Liz helped me find opportunities to do just that. But at what cost?

When I went home for Dad's funeral, and again this last month, it really hit home to me just how much had happened during these last seven years when I was not around. My niece and nephew are 10 and 12 years old now. They were just 3 and 5 (naturally) when I left to come here. Collectively, that's 21 years I lost by being here. Then there's my Mum, my two sisters and their husbands to factor in. All people I love a lot.

I know it's impossible, but I really wish I could have those 7 years back to spend with my father. If I'd known (somehow) I'd have asked Liz to wait for me, it's only 7 years, it's nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it's 7 years I'll never have again.

In a way we're lucky, because we got 30 years with Dad that we shouldn't have had.

In 1973, while riding his motorcycle to work, Dad crashed into the side of a truck. Not a little two-ton pick-up or an F-150, but a full on "We've got a mighty convoy" Semi-Trailer. Technically Dad didn't run into the truck, he ran into the side of it and hit one of the trailer's rear wheels. You know how trucks' trailers have pairs of wheels? My father hit the front wheel of the pair, a split second either way and he would have gone under the wheels and been killed. Instead he bounced off onto the side of the road. Sure, he smashed the lower half of his body from pelvis on down, but he lived, and for thirty years we got to personally know the man who was our father, instead of having to find out about him from the others who knew him.

But that's still no comfort, because my father is still dead, and I miss him so much.