thelesbianlifestyle.com

525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes – how do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life?

Sorry, I just couldn’t help tossing in those lyrics, I think they are fairly fitting when you speak of family and of loss.  My da died just a little over a year ago on October 26, I remember every second of that day, it seems like it just happened.  The flat, emotionless call from my ma, my frenzied call to Dave telling him that I’d be skipping manual drive trains that day and the endless drive down to Butte.  The walk in the door was reassuring, the coffee was made and was liberally spiked with good Irish whiskey.  My ma said to forget the coffee and just give her the whiskey, she drank a good mugful.  God bless the liquid courage.  First thing we did was move him from the couch out to the shop where his coffin was.  Everyone put something in, his boots, work jacket, a box of whoppers, welding rod, his hat, and two silver dollars to give to the ferryman.  We buried him the same day.  Family is people who will help you haul bodies and family is people who help you drink to their deaths.

Our lives have changed so much and yet so little.  The business still goes on, run by by my bro and he’s doing a great job of it.  He’s building an addition to the house so he can take care of my ma.  My ma is doing ok, she’s lost way too much weight cuz she misses my da and she sleeps all the time but she tries.  Danny and Tracy are building the addition to the house and they’ve stepped in to visit my ma and clean her house for her.  And I am still attending school, made the dean’s list last semester, shocked the shit out of everyone.

Mostly though, we miss you da, we miss you too much, who the hell is going to take care of us when life goes wrong?  You did such a good job of taking care of us all that we’re not quite sure how to procede without you.  You were the rock that we all relied on and now we just got your memory to keep us anchored.