A Brief Intermission for Bereavement

As many of you who follow me on Instagram or Facebook know, my father died earlier this month. He was my best friend. I was his mini-me. Our final conversation was much the same as all our daily talks, filled with love and happy memories and chatting while I wrapped the gifts he bought for his grandsons for Christmas. His final day was not expected to be his last, but he did what he loved… his work. His passion for computer science and his integrity fuelled him.

My dad was the most generous, thoughtful, kind, intelligent, and genuine person I know. I strove to be like him and feel blessed that every interaction with him was filled with a reminder of his love for me and interest in the well being of others. His integrity was an example to me in everything he did.

Bill and I were not just father and daughter, but best friends and two peas in a pod. The ongoing joke was that ‘we share a brain’ and we revelled in that. It will, once the shock wears off, certainly be a comfort to be carrying my father with me in my head and heart for the remainder of my own days. I’m also grateful for my amazing memory so I am able to share stories, however silly or inconsequential, with his grandsons who brought him such joy.

I am blessed to have no regrets, but I feel the greed of wishing I had more time with him because he was just an amazing human being. His integrity and kindness were what he was known for by all who met him, but he was also brilliant with an IQ of 161 and a PhD in computer science from before either of those things were popular. I was and will always be immensely proud of him.

Now, how do I move forward in a world without my best friend?

It happened just before my birthday and Christmas, which in itself is difficult, but the pandemic had kept us apart for the last 18 months and now I wait until it is safe to return to grieve with my family in the States. I will miss his funeral, as many others have this year. It is a surreal experience to lose someone who helped me become who I am from day one.

My parents always told me they were proud of me “for waking up in the morning” which has helped me be the person I am. Totally odd because I’m a bit of a productivity seeker. Anyway, I need to breathe and focus on my family right now, so I’m taking a brief intermission from blogging.

I started blogging almost exactly 13 years ago, so you know I’ll be back soon, but I will likely go down to just one post a week instead of my usual two. EvinOK has been going strong since March 2011 and it wasn’t even one of my first blogs. I’ll be on Instagram or Facebook (even Twitter) a bit sharing memories of him.