Goodbye Daddy

January 30, 2013

I don’t even know how to begin this next entry.  I woke up on March 29, 2011 living one person’s life and in an instant I was living another’s.  Chris was there one second and gone the next, like he died.  I guess in most ways, he did.  I understand now what the death of a spouse does to a person.  So many thoughts, emotions, and questions going on in your head all at once, where do you start? 

For me, my beginning was telling my daughters that their daddy was never coming back home again.  HOW?  How was I going to tell them that he wasn’t coming home and not because of a car accident, accident at work, or someone hurt him but because of selfish actions he took that made his self be taken away.  Gabrielle was a little easier to tell since she knew what was going on for the most part.  I think she knew when she saw the handcuffs.  I think she knew something more happened that what he was telling us.  So much for the words he said to her just 3 hours before that. 

Katie was going to be more difficult.  She was 6yrs old and had no idea what was going on that week our computers were out getting “cleaned”.  Where do you find the words?  Lord, help me, I don’t know the words to say.  I am going to break her heart and that is going to break my heart even more.  Lead my words God, please.  Just 4 months earlier Chris and I sat her down and explained to her about Chris adopting them.  She was 3mths old when we met so she knew Chris as her daddy and nothing else.  After the shock, she seemed fine.  She had a few questions and looked at him and said “That’s ok, you are my forever daddy.”  That was all that seemed to matter to her.

I remember so vividly sitting in my parent’s living room; my mom, myself and Katie on the couch and my dad and Gabby across from us on the loveseat.  I looked at my sweet un-broken Katie-bug, realizing this was going to be the first real thing in her life that was going to scar her.  This was about to bust her heart and her world completely open.  Please accept I can’t relive the words, word by word because her face breaks my heart to much, even today.  I will tell you, that I told her that Daddy was going to be a gone for a long time and that I didn’t know how long.  I told her that he had a lot of other “girl” friends and was looking at bad photos of them on the computer.  The tears, the questions, the heart break was all over her face.  I just held her.  I thanked God that there was little said but enough for her to understand.  And Gabby, Lord knows she was a blessing in this conversation.  She always had a way to get Katie’s mind off things, make her laugh, and be goofy.  And Gabby shined bright that night.  They would run around, laugh, then Katie come to the couch and cry some more, and the go back to laughing and being silly.  It was moments of grace, love, but confusion.  All I can tell you is she must of felt bonded enough and loved enough around her by the rest of us that her world didn’t shatter the way I thought it was going to.  Thank you God for the words, thank you for the strength, and thank you for ALL your protection.

That night we went home, the 3 of us gathered in my king size bed, snuggled, and fell asleep holding each other.  As I prayed that night, I didn’t know what was going to happen, what our future entailed, but I knew we weren’t just holding each other but God was holding us.  He was not going to leave us nor forsake us!!  I knew that more than ever…