Not Yet, Heaven

I thought I was going to die. Laying on that floor, my ankle cut open from the glass, my mom sobbing and my sister on the phone with 911, I thought: this is it. This is the end.

But somewhere through the fear, a tear of acceptance reached my lips. If this was truly the end and I was approaching heaven, then someone very special would be waiting for me. Someone who I missed with every breath, and with every bit of oxygen that was inhaled into my lungs. And that, that made me just a little less scared.

I wasn’t going to be alone. 

But then I lived. I survived. My ankle healed. But never did I forget that feeling. And, for some reason, it didn’t seem to forget me either. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The biggest question that I have gotten recently has been, “where do you want to go to college?” I then proceed to list off the names of Universities I am applying to, and the people nod and smile.

I have a future ahead of me, and big, big dreams. I want to write a book, I want to win an Emmy award, I want to be invited to the Country Music Awards. One day, I want to meet a wonderful man who loves me and values me and makes me feel special. And, when we are ready, I want us to start a family. 

Laying on that cold floor with my back resting against it, I watched all of that fade. No books or Emmy awards or invitations to fancy events. No husband or children. Just a 14 ½ year old girl with wasted dreams.

I saw my mom and sister standing over my casket, crying and holding one another, shaking. Their black outfits catching fallen tears. 

I wanted to see my father so Badly. But I wasn’t ready to die.

That, that’s grief for ya.

There is not a day that goes by where I do not miss my father. His voice, his laughter, his presence, his jokes. His hugs when he got home from the golf course. I would give up everything to be able to go back in time and help fight his demons. Travel into his mind and destroy the tunnel that was suffocating and keep myself from losing him.

I need him. Because even though I have lived days, weeks, months, and even years without him, I still have not quite truly figured out how to be okay with that forever.

~~~~~~~~~

Seeing him in my dreams is a gift. He gets to watch me grow, and I get to have my father, even if just for a bit. But when I awake, it is like he left me all over again.

Grief and pain have a really damn good way of making you want to die. They push themselves in and they hurt like an absolute bitch. They do not ask for permission or for the “right” time and they always, always seem to overstay, despite the fact that they are never welcome in the first place.

But let me tell you something. That feeling of wanting it all to end doesn’t always mean that you seek death. Sometimes, that desire is just your heart coming undone inside of your chest. 

I realized after my injury that I didn’t really want to go to heaven, as much as I missed my father. It wasn’t my time yet, and I was sure of that. That acceptance I mentioned in the beginning didn’t fully load all the way because you best believe I was scared out of my mind of the possibility that I wasn’t going to live to see the next day…