5:30 am

Sleep eludes me. It comes in spurts of about 15 minutes. I hear his voice, much like he spoke to me as a child. I feel his presence while I sleep, yet when awake he is no where to be found.

I cry as quietly as I can. My eyes are swollen and red. For the kids, I need to remain strong, yet it has become difficult to even get up and use the bathroom. I have no strength left in me, physically, emotionally, mentally. Where do I find this strength from, for them, so they do not fall apart.. I haven't a clue.

I'm disappointed in myself, for not being stronger for my sister, my kids. I don't break down around them. They see a strong tough independent woman, not a woman who has no self control over herself. I feel darkness everywhere I look and go. The heart hurt is nearly unbearable. There is no joy, no happiness, no laughter in my home. Only pain, heart hurt, feelings hurt, confusion and much wishing things were different.

The boy handled the news far better than the girl and I, though he is having trouble with it, he held up when faced with the news, wanting to skip school again today and drive back down to Az. This simply isn't a choice, though if I had the money, I probably would go back, but I spent my bill money and have just enough to get some groceries to last us till I get paid again on the 3rd. Even the new life we have in the house, 4 little kittens do nothing to bring a smile to my face.

My entire being feels as if the life force has been completely sucked out of me. I think about when we buried my gram and don't believe I have it in me to bury my father should it come to that.

I think about how I wasn't much of a daughter, not a good one at least. I was willfull and headstrong, doing it all my way. Having being kicked out of my mothers home at 13, unable to stand living with my father because of his wife, I lived on the streets until nearly 15 when my beloved gram talked me into going to boarding school, in the same town as my father lays in a coma now. I think about the years I refused to speak to him, simply because he was being a father and I didn't "need" a father by then, having already grown up and been on my own for so long.

I think about when my oldest boy was 8 months old and my father at 40 had his first bypass surgery. How everyone went across the street to a resturant and got drunk, but I came from Northern California with my little boy and instead went to my mothers home, who is a nurse and learned about the procedure from her. Only to get blamed for not being a good daughter because I didn't want to get drunk with the rest of them. Something not above my stepmother for saying. I imagine she is thinking/saying that now as well, though I don't care that much this time, what she thinks.

I remember when my girl was born. How he came from where he lived in Tucson, to So. California to meet his new grandchild, his second one and how proud he was of his first and only girl grandchild. The apple of his eye. And how he came the moment the boy was born, smiling proudly like a grandfather would and talking baseball even when the boy was only 2 hours old. He never had much time with my oldest boy, who lived in California with his father, so the boy was basically the only boy he ever had and he looked forward to coaching him in baseball and just having another male around, since there were only girls around him. Me, my sister, my daughter, him. Bringing the boy into his life, made him very happy.

I still wasn't a good daughter. I gave him the kids, the only good thing I ever did for him. His love for my children is fierce, unbreakable, unlike any love he feels for the rest of us. They are his reason that he wanted to continue living and for the new baby coming at the end of the year, his first great grandchild. I hope that his mind remembers this, while he lays in a coma, his chest open, machines all around him giving him life, keeping him alive.

I've always said I have no regrets for the way I lived my life. Yes, I did it my way, though at various times, I had no choice. But as I sit here this morning, I find myself with many regrets, the biggest one...not being the daughter that I could have been. I wish I could teach this to my own children. Sadly, they will have to learn this lesson on their own, it is nothing I can teach them. I can only tell them of my experience, but as much as they like to say they are not like me in any way, they are very much like me. Wanting to do it, their way, without thought of others around them.

Perhaps there is truth in those words many hear as children, something to the effect of a threat I suppose, not one I ever heard, but one I've heard others say. How they will get what they gave when they were children... apparently that is what I am living right now with them.

My mind is racing. The heart hurt continues. I beg my grandmother and my grandfather to not take their oldest child, not yet please. Not sure what if that helps or not, I simply cannot think of anything else to do.

He is here with me, I can feel him, I can hear him. I think I have reached that edge of insanity, that this was the push needed to send me over the edge. The tunnel is black, there is at this moment, no light at the end of it. I can't turn around, there is no light on the other side either. Which way do I go? I can't go backwards, yet going forward scares me beyond words. I know I must walk through this, the best I can, yet my best doesn't feel good enough. These are feelings I've had my entire life and I had thought I no longer held these feelings of worthlessness, of not being good enough, but as my fathers mortality stares me in the face, I realize I still carry these feelings of self loathing, that I'm not and never was good enough and perhaps, I will never be good enough.

Regardless of what happens in the next week or so, nothing will ever be the same. My realtionship with my children will be changed forever, my relationship with my family will be changed forever and I'm not so sure these are good things. I will be belittled by my fathers wife, for not staying during his surgery, even knowing that he asked me to bring the kids home. I will not win in any of this, even if he pulls through and I will once again be "that" daughter, the one who does as she pleases. Rationality does not come easily if at all, to this family. I have been the rational one all my life, yet I seem to have lost that somewhere in the last 24 hours. I seem to have lost much in the last 24 hours. And should he pull through? He will follow his wives lead and I will again be the daughter who does nothing right, no matter that he told me what to do and I did it, he will not remember that, as he was on painkillers, something he never takes but has been while in the hospital and it has clouded his thinking even when not on them. This I know to be true, as my stepmother told him I had said something the other day, something I never said nor would I and he came down on me for it, no amount of denying it helped, as always. She holds a power over him that is unexplainable.. he has always allowed her to treat me like shit and in turn, he did the same. It wasn't until he got sick this time, that we got closer, our relationship seemed to be that of a father and daughter, instead of conflicts and arguing about trival things all the time...

I'm just so drained, so lonely, so alone and so lost.

Some more to get off my chest...

*105th thing you may not know about me: I think most times I'm ugly*

I just needed to write a bit more about my father.. it's really the only way I know how to process things, write them, read them, absorb them, process them and hopefully acknowledge and accept them...

I tell my father each and every time before we hang up the phone that I love him and when I am in Phx with him, I make sure to let him know that I love him and it's only been the last couple of months that he has been telling me, I love you too. Which still had me feeling like, he's only saying that because I said it to him. (I told him plenty as a child that I loved him, but never heard it back). So for him to initiate that conversation with me tonight, both scared me and filled me with joy. I think he believes he is going to die and if I am honest, I am feeling the same way.

I don't know how much more he can take of this, being back in the hospital depresses him, which makes him sicker too. I don't know how far technology has come, if it can keep him alive indefinitely till a heart, a good heart, comes available. I don't know if "God" has plans for him to live or die.

I've hit a bottom. At one moment I am cursing "God" and the next begging "Him", even going as far as begging my beloved gram to help, to not take him yet. I close my eyes and see my father how he once was, large and alive.. as a child, I believed he walked on water, until the pain of being his daughter became too much for me and he fell off his pedestal, breaking my heart and soul.

And now, my heart and soul is breaking again. I know we are never ready to lose a loved one, I intellectually understand this, my heart and soul do not understand and I seem incapable of lining up my mind, heart and soul together, to be one with each. I cannot seem to find that peace that I know I'm able to find other times and so I am baffled. Acceptance is not coming and wisdom is eluding me. Fear has overcome me and sleep has been impossible lately. It is almost as if I am afraid to sleep, afraid I will miss the phone call, whichever call it may be. Fear is like a shadow that hangs over me at all times. Strength is no longer an option, there is no strength left in me. As I watch him get sicker and sicker, I die inside more and more. I have no one to lean on, no one to call in the middle of the night when I can't sleep or if somehow I've managed to drift off and have a nightmare. Even if I did, I'm not sure I'd call someone anyways... weakness is disgusting to me and yet, here I am weak, powerless, scared out of my mind and I'm utterly disgusted with myself.

And I have sat here reading this over and over, not really wanting to send it in, not wanting you all to really see how so very weak and disgusting I have become... and yet my ego is just low enough that I know I need to share this with you, that I need for you to see me at my lowest, a place I never thought would be lower than when I lost my gram... yet here I am lower then that time. I need for you to see it and I'm not quite sure why. I've been sharing about my father for so long, I imagine most are tired of reading my whining, but what else can I do anymore... seems that's all I'm capable of doing here anymore... whine and complain. Weak and disgusting.

So, once again, if you are so inclined to, please keep my father in your prayers, or light a candle for him, or send out positive thoughts for him. Leave me out of it please, send them for him he needs it all much more than I do. One day, someway, somehow when I least expect it, my mind, my heart and my soul will align with each other and that acceptance and wisdom that eludes me now, will find it's way into my life. For now, focus on him, please...

Right after I published that last post....

*104th thing you probably do know about me: I'm scared to death that my father is going to die, very soon*

I hit publish on my last post and my phone rang. It was my father. I had intended on calling him when I was finished with my last post, since it's free for me after 7pm and I like to speak to him each day...

He is back in the hospital. His numbers were down, they didn't like them and the meds aren't doing for him what they should be doing. He says he'll be there awhile. I think he means, till he dies or gets another heart. I know he could hear the fear in my voice, he didn't want to talk he said, but he needed to tell me a few things...

First, they had a heart for him Monday night. (I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but he is type 0 blood and finding him a heart is difficult, he is also as of the other day 4th on the list for his type of blood and body) All the doctors arrived at the hospital (though he was not told this until today) and spent an hour going over the heart, testing it, looking at it and arguing about it, eventually deciding that it wasn't good enough, not for him and as it turned out... not for anyone. By this time, me the one who is strong, who never breaks down in front of him, who holds her head up and on straight, because as I've said before, I am the oldest child, I am the strongest one of the entire family - my life required me to be stronger than the rest of them, including the adults, I was crying. I don't know if he could tell, I suspect he could, though I wasn't hyperventilating and they were silent tears, but I could hear my voice cracking, I'm sure he could too.

He than told me "Take care of the kids" I asked if he wanted me to come down and he said "No, stay there and take care of the kids" "Tell them I love them very much". I assured him that they knew that and I would tell them anyways, plus that they loved him very much too.

He then said that he wanted to get off the phone and I told him to get some rest and I would call him in the morning...

Before he hung up he said to me..

"I want you to know that I love you very much. I know you don't think I do, I know you've never thought that I loved you, but I do, more than you would believe"

I lost it.

I let him know that I knew he loved me, even though he never really tells me and that it was okay, WE were okay. I let him know that I loved him (which I always tell him) and I also let him know that I loved him all the time, even when he wasn't sick. He chuckled when I said that, though I'm not really sure it was funny. At least I wasn't trying to be funny, but if it made him smile, than all is good.

If you're so inclined to, please send positive thoughts and/or prayers that this will have a good outcome. My beliefs are of such that I know that whatever happens will happen for a reason, either he dies or gets a new heart and really there's nothing to be done about it, but wait and hope for the best. But I have also seen the power of positive thoughts, the power of prayers work for others, so I am now at a point of trying anything and everything so that my children's grandfather will live long enough to see the younger two graduate high school, college, get married (he would be the one to walk the girl down the aisle)maybe even long enough to meet his great grandchildren... so, I'm pulling out all the things I know even though they go against my beliefs to an extent and begging for positive thoughts from all of you in bloggyland, a chain of positive thoughts and prayers.

Please.