As White As Snow

As of today I've been on a scary, horrible rollercoaster ride that I never wanted to ride for 3 years. I've physically exhausted myself just going through the motions of life just trying to burry this pain I feel everyday and this weight of the universe on my shoulders.... Its all so heavy. Today I am sad.

Today I am sad because still after three years of being on this ride I have no closure. I have no answers to why my Dad took his own life without even saying goodbye. I am sad because I feel like everyone around me just sort-of forgot and moved on so easily with their life. Why can I not let him go? Why do I still, after so long, feel no peace. 

December is such a dark month. Its cold, the daylight doesn't last, and its dark most of the day. Everyone's so focused on Christmas presents rather than taking time to spend time. It's really easy to take family and loved ones for granted. They have always been there so they always will be, right? 

Wrong.

I dream of him a lot. Sometimes I have nightmares when I can't save him, and sometimes I have wonderful dreams where I do save him, or I see him and get to talk to him and when I wake up... Those are the hardest to wake up from. Because I lose him all over again. He dies again almost every morning. Above all, though I have a few of the same reoccurring dreams. Some are okay some are terrible. Most of the time, it's this dream of him and I sitting in my grandparents old home, he is telling me how much he loves me and I can see grandmother sitting at her piano and she turns to me and tells me "he is okay, Katelyn." And that is when I wake up. Every. Single. Time.

The most powerful dream I had was a month after he passed, give or take. It was the first time I had slept since I lost him. I was packing bags into the trunk of my car, I was moving. We all were. I looked up to say goodbye to my home of my whole life and there he was on the porch. I angrily slammed the trunk down and took off for him. I search thought my empty home yelling and cursing trying to find him. I found him sitting in the corner of my bedroom. Appearing very upset. I contune to yell and scream. I kicked and hit the walls with tears coming down my face. When I finally got done I stopped and looked at him. He was healthy looking. He wasn't so tired. He had... A glow to him I hadn't noticed he had lost slowly over the years. My Dad asked me to sit down beside him. He told me it was not my fault. And that he was sorry. And he's with me, all the time. And that he has never saw me so upset. He then told me he came for a reason and he had to take me somewhere. We stood up and these huge, beautiful angel wings appear. They were as white as the snow that fell at his funeral but... So beautiful. He wrapped them around me and they even had a scent I will never forget. The next thing I saw was a dark, scary place. It was kind of a dead forest. Every step echoed and the sky was gray. We walked miles until we came up on this lake. The feeling there was just downright depressing. My dad picked up this lake and began to walk with it while I was froze still. He was struggling. It was so hard for him to walk with that mass of water. He finally made it back to me and I asked what it was about 4 times until he said "It's your tears, Kate. I have to carry them. Please, stop crying. " 

And like that, he was gone, and I woke up in my bed, lost and confused. 

I've learned a lot of valuable lessons over these 3 years. I've learned that its okay to not be okay even when you really just want to be okay and feel okay for one second. I've learned to always say "I love you" because people really do leave this earth in a blink of an eye. I've learned that things take time. And even though things are hard, there is always a reason to be thankful.