thanksgiving

i can't believe it's thanksgiving already. the days just fly by.

it's been non stop since i went back to work. there's so much going on. i feel like i could work 12 hours a day and still never catch up. the company is ever changing and evolving so there's always some new project to work on. plus i hired a new person so i've been training them. and last week i got permission to have my friend justin come work for me temporarily. he just passed the bar but has had trouble finding a job and i needed help so he came in from dallas to stay with us and work for a bit. it seems that what started as temporary will be turning permanent soon though. im super grateful to have him on my team. and i'm thankful i have a job that keeps me busy. i'm thankful that in a recession, we still have tons of work. and i'm thankful for my boss who has been a huge blessing in my life for the past three years.

i expected thanksgiving to be hard. it's our first holiday without dad. until tonight, it really hadn't been. in fact, it didn't feel any different than normal and i've honestly been so busy i havent thought a whole lot about the day at all. i remember stopping for a second today and thinking, oh my gosh, thanksgiving is tomorrow! but now that i'm home...and it's quiet...and a box of my dad's clothes sits in my dining room...and i just so happened to receive dad's death certificate today (talk about a surreal moment)...and i look at the stack of thank you cards on my bar that i STILL haven't mailed out even though they've been addressed for weeks...and it's starting to hit me.

i don't think to call him quite as much anymore. there still isn't a day that goes by that i don't think about him though. that i don't miss him. a lot. it's this achy feeling. i look at pictures and can't believe he isn't here anymore. i honestly thought this could be his last thanksgiving. when he was diagnosed, i never dreamed he wouldn't make it this long. obviously, i had to face realty at the end of september and knew he wouldn't, but that really bad time is becoming fuzzier to me. thankfully. i remember being so frustrated while dad was sick. each day felt like an eternity to me. and i look back now and think, wow the time went so fast. 3 short weeks. not even two months from the time he was diagnosed until the time he died. i think about last thanksgiving and the fact that dad had this horrible disease that caused his body to turn on him and we had no idea. and i'm glad. because last thanksgiving, life was normal. we weren't worried about how precious time was. we weren't worried about what tomorrow held. we ate well and we enjoyed each other's company and we watched some football. we had no idea what this thanksgiving would be like and it didn't matter. we enjoyed that day for what it was.

i feel like my blog has kind of turned into an all about dad journal. this is about the only time i talk about it though. life goes on, 100 MPH, and i don't really sit still long enough to talk about it. but it's always there with me, in the back of my mind. anytime life quiets enough, mostly on my drive home, or other moments when i find myself not at work and by myself, it's always the first thing that pops into my mind. so i'm sorry if it seems like i'm dwelling, but it's still very real to me. it feels very new. i feel like im always entering different phases of "dealing with it" but im still dealing with it, even if i don't talk about it.

so yes, i have MUCH to be thankful for, but right now, i'm feeling a lot like something's missing. or rather, someone. and at 11:30 at night, the night before thanksgiving, that's what i'm thinking about. the one who's not here.