Some days are Sunny, others are a B*tch

WDC 30 Day Blogging Nov. 18, 2021

PROMPT November 19th

We've all had one or several epiphany's in our lives. Tonight, write about a moment in your life that changed the way you view the world.

I know that I am late with this but I really wanted to answer this because it did change my entire life. I was taking care of my Dad the last couple of months of his life. He and Mom had moved from Atlanta about a year and a half before to retire in a lovely retirement community. I left my husband and 2 boys at home and went down to be with them for the time Dad had left . I had to take a leave from the hospital but Dad had transitioned from treatment to Hospice and I wanted to care for him. He had spent most of the previous year in and out of the hospital with terrible side effects from the chemotherapy for Stage four Lymphoma. This was 1988.

Dad and I spoke about many things those last couple of months. I had married at 18. I didn’t really know much about my dad except the things he wanted me to know, not as an adult. He wasn’t a man that spoke often just when he had to. We talked about his 3 years in WW2 in the infantry and how that affected his life. We spoke about how my Mom would be when he was gone and I promised to watch after her. I was surprised when he asked me if I was happy in my marriage of 17 years. He had noticed how far apart my husband and had become. He was traveling all the time for work and I was working night shift. At one time we were inseparable. Anyway, My Dad saw something that I knew but didn’t want to face, our marriage was basically over unless we both worked on it.

Dad said to me, “Tootsie, life is much too short to be unhappy”.

Dad had always opposed divorce and I always wanted to please him, I was surprised.

He died a couple weeks after he asked me that. It was pretty peaceful at the end with all the Morphine I was having to give him. He was conscious though and died with a smile, Mom and I held his hands.

I decided driving back to GA after the service that I was going to make some major changes. We did marriage and then divorce therapy and 2 years later, we separated when my oldest went off to college. It was sad but it was the right thing at that time. Life is too short to be unhappy.