sadness can feel like chapstick-tubes going through your veins. sideways. tears hurt with a sting on dry lips. pools of dried salt cause pimples on your neck, when you cry in your sleep or when driving along with burning eyes that just let it all go unexpectedly. Usually on highways.

sadness can feel like a glass of seltzer water, bubbles clinging to the sides, some deep at the bottom that are prone to rising up, popping, sometimes causing a bunch of other bubbles to pop all at once. You throw in some icecubes, hoping to water things down as they melt.

sadness can feel like a shiver of cold that freezes you to the bones, or hot like walking into a small kitchen with no airconditioning after a dishwasher has gone through a drying cycle in the burning heat of August.

sadness isn't a constant. we're just not built that way, none of us. everybody seeks ways outta being sad. we stop reading newspapers, we shut off tvs. or we read the newspaper and watch tv... depends what you let your mind take in and what you skip past by flipping to the next page or channel.

we look out windows or take dogs for walks. we sit and listen to music that makes us happy. or music that makes us sad, to just let a few bubbles rise and disappear in a pop. we play a game. we listen to somebody talk who has a way of cheering us up. we read. I read Douglas Adam's Resataurant at the End of the Universe in one day, which is unusual for me to read any book, no matter how short, in a twenty-four hour period. But I did, because I needed a smile and once I got it in just one paragraph, I didn't want it to stop. So I just kept reading. What a great book to read when you're looking for a reason to laugh about life and how goofy it can get.

Thanks, Mark/Marvin/bl, again.

we sit in the sunshine and watch trains go by on a track that goes on to places with a mile of train cars and cargo, probably peanuts and oranges. we listen and watch children play and hair on bouncing heads over mole holes, golf carts can go pretty fast. we eat icecream.

we smoke cigarettes and look forward to a time in life when we can quit smoking.

I think of the home-made movies I have in this house and wonder when I'll be able to watch them without going back to chapstick-tubed veins full of sadness. I've so much footage of my dad, and I want to hear his voice again, like in the clip Tim made, if only through speakers on a television set. But I've gotta wait a tiny bit more, because although I'm getting stronger, I need a little bit more time. The fog lifted in Florida. I'm breathing in without my heart aching, and my mind has accepted things, but the bubbles still float to the top now and then in the seltzer water glass stage.

March is right around the corner. February hasn't much been a good month in my life. A lot of crappy things have happened in February throughout my life. It's not February's fault or anything, and some great things have happened in Februaries, too. I like when it snows in February and the day after we got home it snowed heavily. It was a very good snowfall, gigantic snowflakes. A great snow-show.

Sadness can change from snow to sleet to rain. Or from rain to sleet to snow.

Thank gosh for the change of seasons in New England. I'm looking forward to the spring.

He never made it to Boston.

http://www.semara.org/k1ibr.html

A couple of things I've learned over the past dozen days. Time doesn't begin healing for a while... in fact, the time going by is making things worse. It feels like a greater distance is being created by the number of days my father has been gone. It's making me miss him more, and if time had a pause button, I'd push it. Because I'm pretty damn weak at this point. I'd pause it in order to build up some kinda strength. The days just add up to more time I haven't talked with my pops. Everything feels off kilter. Everything feels like out of sync. I'm a freakin' mess, in a fog, but somehow it's only making me work harder, think slower, and although inside I feel slow-motion, I'm busy-busy-busy in spite of being more tired than I've ever been in my life. I want to sleep for a month.

I've learned that, as usual, when something sad happens, something brutally sad and unfair, I, as usual, tend to run away in one way or another. Physically and/or mentally. We're going to Florida for a few days. Initially, we were going to use our tax refund money for plane tickets to florida for Christmas 2007, but as it became more and more obvious my dad was going to die, all I could think of was the big tree in Ken's dad's front yard in Florida. All I could think of was the sound of the boys laughing in the fields behind Ken's dad's house. All I could think of was quiet foggy mornings in Florida. And that matches my mood... quiet and foggy. All I want to do is run, run, run away. Even knowing the ol' 'wherever you go, there you are' aspect. I know thoughts of my dad will be with me in Florida. I know I can't run away from any of this. But I do know that there's a calmness there that will help me to come to grips with all of this. Thankfully, Kenny and the kids agreed that running away to Florida was a fantastic idea, and nobody poked fun at me for being such a pussy.

I learned that my children are incredibly strong and capable of handling things a lot better and maturely than I ever could have fathomed. I learned that my dad's family is the most amazing, eccentric, intelligent, funny group of people that far surpassed everything I already knew about them when it comes to coping with life's tragedies. I'm positive the only reason I am currently not in a straight-jacket is because of the incredible family I'm surrounded by... as well as my dad's phenomenal foresight and logic to put into place so much dark humor post-death situations, to help me cope. Although I'm amused, highly, by my dad's antics, which I'm pretty sure he put into place only weeks prior to his death, I'm more in a sense of awe of his intelligence now than even before his death. Not that prior to his death I didn't respect his wisdom and logic... but it's grown, which I never would have figured to be possible. I've enjoyed the challenges and the adventures he's had me embark upon. It's been and continues to be an honor to be Bill Miller's daughter.

This Sunday I go to see my dad's ashes. It will either thicken the fog or lift it; I just don't know. Either way works, I can function in either scenerio, so it's a reverse catch-22.


There's so many moments from the six weeks of my father's final journey that I want to write about. Someday I will.