Today is your birthday. You would've been 89. I decided to turn this day into a good one a year ago. I hated it for 2 years. Believe me or not, I STILL can't believe you're not physically here and I think about you more now than I did last year.. or the year before.. or the year before that. I talked to Troy on the phone this morning and since it's the same for both of us, we were trying to make sense of it. Maybe it's because of all of the things I'm accomplishing in my life that I want you to see, the little people I want you to kiss on the forehead. Signature Berns. And actually a pretty big person I would give anything to see you interact with. Magic meeting magic. I'd have a blast witnessing that.
I always find myself reminiscing these days. Like, "geez Courtney, live in the now because you're just about the luckiest girl on planet Earth." I know this. I love my life, everyone in it, and everything it has become. And every single human on Earth deserves the kind of life and love I have. But let me tell you, losing my dad has changed me forever; my heart, my brain, every aspect of everything. It has also taught me so much. Some things, I still push back on and probably always will but the only thing I can try to do with this loss and processing it, is to learn. So shitty.
First of all, I'm really pissed. A lot. My dad was, to me, invincible in so many ways. He was so kind, generous, protective, strong, honest ... although we, just now after his death, found out be broke his back riding our horse and not falling into an empty pool in '93 (story told so mom wouldn't freak out), so honest 100% of the time is a stretch LOL. He would give a nice, solid smack on the back of the head to anyone who deserved it, usually the boys or their friends, but man was he the first in any one of our corners. There was nothing more important to the man than his family. He balanced my mom, he accepted everyone he met, he yelled very seldomly but when he did you listened or it was your ass. He could lift 200 lb boulders at 70 and strategically place them on the waterfalls of his pools. He constantly put the heads back on mine and Christine's dolls when we were little.
He bought me the original Nintendo the first day it came out and I still have it. He bragged about us. He just made everything around him better. And I'm really pissed that I don't get to be around that everyday anymore. Memories aren't the same as living it. So, no, the whole "may the memories help you" or whatever that is, just don't say it. It's dumb.
A feeling like I didn't have enough time that's almost like suffocation. Or letting go of a helium balloon and watching it drift toward the sun and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. It's panic. And I used to call you when I would panic. Your advice came from such a place it was like you just reached up and tore a page out of a 'What To Say and Do to Make Everyone Around You Better For Knowing You' book. Of course we didn't have enough time together. 35 years is not nearly enough hours. I still had so much I wanted to show you. I still can't grasp that we essentially lost you twice. That fucking disease is horrendous. I'm mad at it.
Death is so weird to me. I remember saying in an earlier blog that the finality is breathtaking. I've never found a better description. So this person lives, creates, forms relationships, travels, sometimes makes kids, shares stories and ideas, contributes to society in some way, sometimes for a short time, sometimes decades, whatever then BAM!. All of that is over at their last breath. Then everyone they leave behind struggles to go on without them. Isn't that the most fucked up thing you've ever heard? Talk about the next Bird Box. But that's exactly what it is! A CRUSHING blow. Unbearable at times. I wish there was some kind of way around it.. A get out of jail free card of sorts.
I was walking down Main St at Disney World the other day and the sight of the castle made me cry, but the fireworks made me look like Amy Winehouse after a bender. Jesus. Took my breath away. How many times did we stand there together watching those? Some of my favorite memories are those vacations. You were always such a little kid there. My God what I wouldn't give. We passed the Country Bear Jamboree and the Hall of Presidents. I laughed and immediately texted Mark to laugh at how you couldn't walk by these two boring ass attractions with you without getting pulled in. "Come on! Don't argue with me!" Haha and we'd of course go because you never wanted to disappoint Berns. Ever. So laughing happens a lot too, thinking of you. It's not all humdrum.
Alright I'm not gonna go on and on but I wanted to check in with myself. I'm doing ok, I really am. I married the man of my dreams (pretty sure he'd be the man of Berns' dreams for me too), added another little lady to the crew, and my work still fulfills me. Days are different, some all laughs, some annoyingly somber. So really not much in the Emotions Without Berns category has changed. Besides I miss him more than I did yesterday.
The luckiest of girls because of what my life is and the luckiest of girls because of what it was.
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