365 Days.

One year. One whole year.

I have really struggled today - with my emotions & my words. My spirit feels very conflicted.

For me, I find that the days leading up to the anniversary date of a passing loved one are harder than the actual day... over the past week I have relived every detail of my last week with Daddy - those minute & of magnitude.

Being admitted to the hospital on Monday because he was jaundiced & although knowing it was most likely disease progression, praying that it was just a slow processing liver in need of fluids. Being told on Tuesday that our worst fears were a reality & he would be going home on hospice care. Leaving the hospital on Wednesday & the quiet drive home. Celebrating Thanksgiving together & putting up Christmas decorations that Thursday.

On that Friday morning my heart broke in to a million pieces when my sister & I had to help him get in to a wheelchair. Thinking that my heart couldn't take any more, just 12 or so hours later Aaron & I had to move him back in to bed for the night, without any help from him, his body basically limp as organs began to deteriorate...

These memories... they are such a catch 22. On one hand, they are precious moments that mark my final days with him this side of Glory. I'm a mother hen, I enjoy caring for those that I love - my heart swelled while fixing him a bowl of my Aunt Jenny's chicken stew & a grilled cheese, the same grilled cheese he taught me to fix as a child. It swelled when he told Aaron, "Just go get Brit, she knows how to fix my pillows." The memory of my home being filled to the brim with 'my people' - Daddy, Chels, & Aaron - oh, it filled my heart with joy to have them all under my roof. They are beautiful & heartbreaking - one in the same. I am thankful for being able to serve him in those final moments while also being tormented by the excruciatingly painful details of 'the end' of his precious life.

On this day last year, I left Athens-Limestone Hospital in total shock that all of our efforts to fight the cancer didn't work & he died.

Today, my life is so different than what it was on that day, it is barely recognizable. I was graduating from intern school for a job that other students dream of, I didn't know if I wanted children but I sure didn't want them any time soon. My free time was spent researching cancer centers & new therapies that could possibly save Daddy. My overall feeling was sadness & anger & bitterness although I tried to portray a completely different being.

Today, I am sitting in the backseat of my sister's Jeep, next to my little darling, heading home from an amazing long-weekend trip to the mountains with 'my people' - Aaron, Chelsea, & Prater.

Although there is not a day that goes by that I don't feel sadness that he isn't here with us, that I don't wake up from a dream of him playing with a one year old Prater in the home that I grew up in, that I don't wish with every fiber of my being that he could have lived to be an old PeePaw... I also feel joy & so blessed in my life.

I thank God every day for this ordinarily amazing life that I am living.

I do not take one moment of it for granted & I cling to it like it could be a vapor tomorrow...

Because if the last year has taught me anything, it's that life is fleeting... that its the ordinary moments of your daughter recognizing your voice & smiling that are the best... that relationships with your sister are important because you will need each other... that at the end of your life, you won't be surrounded by material items but people who will be sharing special memories of their time spent with you & how important you were to their life.

Today, I am so thankful for a Daddy who taught me those lessons & I can only pray to be granted the opportunity to share them with his granddaughter.