uglyreal

I used to throw this kind of stuff up on Facebook…the little moments that I wanted to record, but now, they just seem too sad for Facebook, so I don’t want them there.

It was a night at our house. Just a crappy night. Mac was in a tizzy. Several things set him off, and he was a flat bad mood, which led to him crying, which led to him going up to his room, and making a lot of noise, like the slamming of things and throwing things and all the stuff that makes a lot of noise in a little boy’s bedroom when he is angry. He came downstairs jumping rope. It made a lot of noise as it slapped on the floor, and I knew that was the goal. If he had something to break, he would have broken it 20 times.

Mac was mad at Daddy.

He didn’t have to say it. I’m his mama. I know.

He had a crappy day, and he wanted my daddy. He just wanted to tell him. He wanted his Charles to be near. He wanted to feel him. He wanted to hug him. He wanted to just say out loud to him all the things he can’t say to his parents.

And it made me madder than Mac could ever think about being.

To see my baby so angry because he can’t get to the one person he trusted the most in the world makes me angrier than I think I’ve been in a year and almost 5 months. My heart breaks. Angry tears are hitting my keyboard as I type. It just hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts some more.

The hurts just keep on coming.

The lessons my daddy taught him while he was here….I’m SO scared that his leaving has undone every ounce of that in Mac.

I’m scared it has undone every ounce of that in me.

Because what daddy who loved you with everything everything everything everything leaves you on purpose and expects you to carry on in the way he reared you?

It doesn’t happen that way. It just doesn’t.

The leaving changes everything about you. It changes who you are, what you know, what you believed, what you could count on.

We are all changed.

And we don’t know what to do.

After things quieted down, we all sat on the couch to watch The Voice. And some dude sang One More Day by Diamond Rio.

One More Day. One more time. One more sunset, maybe I’d be satisfied.

We all know I wouldn’t, but I would sure take it. It is pretty much all I dream of, all I wish for.

One more day.

And yet, if it was granted to me, I would give my day with Daddy to Mac. Because that is what a parent does.

I would give the one thing I want the most in my entire life to my son because he matters more than I.

And I am your daughter, but you couldn’t even just keep breathing for me.

You were such a good daddy. You loved me in a way that taught me right from wrong, moral from immoral, good from bad. You taught me that you don’t have to get anything in return to do something for someone else; you do it because you want to, because you should, because you must.

You showed me what loved looks like. You showed me every day you were alive.

And then, your last act showed me what it looks like to not give a damn about the people you love.

Your last act may have undone everything good you ever taught me.

Because at the end of the day, at the end of your life, you decided not to be a daddy….certainly not MY daddy.

It would have been better if you had just walked away…just left us. I wish you had done it a long time ago, because instead, you made us love you up until the minute you pulled that trigger.

And then, you left us with the after.

And we were still trying to deal with the love we had known our entire lives up until approximately 10:37 on June 22,  2017.

At  10:38, you changed the game. You changed the lessons. You changed the code.

You just left us trying to reconcile how we could still love the You who reared us with the You who left us. On purpose.

And now I’m watching Mac live with that conflict: I know how much Charles loved me because he showed me, but then, he left me on purpose, and that just doesn’t equal anything that makes sense. And I tell my mama that talking about it won’t change anything. That makes her cry. Because she knows it, too.

And she can’t fix it.

This is what you have left me with, Daddy.

This.

Him.

Him like this.

Me like this.

Just one more day, Daddy, Just one more day.

You could have.

You should have.

But you didn’t.

Which makes you not the daddy I knew.

It makes you not the Charles that Mac knew.

And you not being the Charles that Mac knew, the Daddy that I knew, made you become a person anyone who had ever met you, a stranger.

No one could believe it.

Because we all knew you.

And the you we knew would have given us the One More Day off your back. Every time.

Except for that day.

You changed us by loving us, Daddy, and you changed us by leaving us, and we don’t know who we are anymore.

Even and especially your boy.

So I know you can’t give us one more day from Heaven….but I hope you can read blogs in Heaven.

Anythings possible, right?

I’m supposed to believe that, so let’s just say I do.

I hope you can read blogs in Heaven, and I hope you read this one.

And I hope, on some heavenly level, you finally get it: We didn’t want your things. We didn’t expect you to take care of us forever. We didn’t care about your money or anything associated with you that wasn’t just, you.

All we wanted was One More Day, every single day.

All we ever wanted, Daddy, was you.