October 7

Today is the anniversary of my Biological father's death. This is him and his mom and dad. Don't you just love her hair??

This is my grandpa and grandma, Grandpa's mother (is the old lady in the middle) Joe is the oldest boy on the top row right hand side.

Joe and Tiffini (Tiffini is my younger sister)

Joe and Emily (Tiffini's daughter)

I think, (But don't know for sure) that this is Joe and Tiffini.

Joe and Emily.

It was also his mother's birthday. (She passed away about a year ago.) This is a picture of she and I at the dinner after Tiffini's graduation from Texas A&M ~ (this picture was taken about 2 months before Joe died.)

The memories of these things, these people, put me in a strange head space . . . They are MY FAMILY . . . but I didn't know them . . . they didn't know me . . . The person I am, is NOT because of who they were ~ other than biologically. The core of my being, my morals, my attitudes, my kindness, my love . . . did not come from them, for they really never showed me any love or kindness . . . I was an obligation that every once in a while would pop up in the form of guilt . . . "Oh I really wanted to call you and talk to you for the last 20 years, but just couldn't find the time." kind of thing. I guess I don't fault them . . . well, not much . . . I was that "out of sight, out of mind" family member . . . Just that daughter/Granddaughter in Colorado. The one that the week after Thanksgiving they would get a Christmas card from with pictures of a life they didn't know about.

I tried to reach out . . . To the best of my ability . . . but it's hard to be a young girl, and reach out to a family who had never really put any effort in to knowing you . . . and then when I became an adult, I had reached the point where it wasn't as important to me any more . . . why should I care when none of them ever did . . . right?

When Joe (my biological Father) passed away (Don't even get me started on the drama of his death . . . I don't have the strength to get in to that right now . . . maybe another day, or year . . . or maybe never . . . I don't know.) I realized how bad I felt for never being cared for by this side of the family . . . I realized that these people, this "family" of mine was gone now, and that I would never have the opportunity to get to know them or like them. (For me, Joe was hard to like . . . he was brash and at times rude . . .) And for that I grieved . . . I would never have the opportunity to find something I liked about Joe . . . I would never have the opportunity to hear all of his stories . . . I would never get to know the parts of him that so many other people knew and loved . . . and for that I ached . . . I hurt . . . I was angry . . . (Ok, truth be told, I still am kind of angry.) And then rifts happened between me and my younger sister . . . She had stories . . . she had thoughts and love for him . . . I wanted to hear those stories, but one of the things I don't think she realized was that the stories made me sad, and at times angry . . . she got to know this man, who never bothered to even send me a birthday card . . . she had all these stories, all of these times with him . . . and I had NONE of that, and the few times I did get to be around Joe, he was a goober of gargantuan proportion . . . So how come she got all the love and wonderfulness, and all I got was the distance and the rudeness??

But nevertheless, I grieve . . . I still ache for the things that could have been . . . should have been . . .

For the last year, since my sweet Thomas has been gone, I have learned a lot about grief . . . There is no rhyme or reason for the things we feel and think . . . they just are. It seems for me, I usually ache for the things that that person will never get to do . . . Joe will never truly "know" me, he will never know how fantastic my boys are . . . he will never know how I can see a color and then remember that color and match it . . . he will never know that I make the worlds greatest Chili . . . or that my chicken artichoke squares are things people request me to make for them. He will never know how big my heart is . . . He will never know that I can draw and paint, and how I love totally and unconditionally . . . he will never know those things about me . . . and I ache for that . . . part of me always has wondered . . . why didn't he love me?

This man was supposed to be my Father . . . he was supposed to love me and want to know me and want to know my kids . . . but he didn't . . . He never did.

And then he was gone.

And the opportunity to ever have those things happen in my life . . . was gone with him.

So today I grieve for the memory of Joe . . . for all the things that I wished and hoped for, and all the things that will never be.