I have been truckin' ( long post!! )

I decided to go out with Elmer on the road on Sunday. It was a very last minute decision and we were in a rush to get everything all packed up for me to go and extra food and snacks for me.
So..I packed my new book that I got for my birthday by Danielle Steele and some Nerds candies, chocolate bars and I made 3 PB and J sandwiches to get me through the first couple of days as I knew we had lots of driving ahead of us all the way to Taber Alberta with not a lot of stops in between.
Elmer thought it would be good for me to get out of the house...mom thought it would be good to be around Elmer and not be alone...the girls just wanted the house to themselves!! LOL. Well...let me tell ya IT WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA!!!! I was trapped in a very small space with no where to run or hide when I was sad. All I kept thinking about for the first 2 days was the hideous phone call that had altered my life forever.Everyone I see tells me how sorry they are to have heard the news of my father's passing and then continue to ask me how I am doing. What can I say???? I tell them I am ok all the while choking back the lump that has appeared in my throat without notice and then I can almost feel my eyes start to fill up with tears. When...if I was at home..I would just lay down and cry.I would like nothing better than to tell them that I am a mess. The sadness and sorrow I am feeling had seared me to my very soul. Like I am being stabbed in my heart with a hundred knives. There are days that it even hurts me to breathe. But...I am weathering the storm that has presented itself in my life. I go to bed every night with some sad thoughts and some happy and I wake up every morning. I take a deep breath and start another day. All I have left now is a memory. A memory of a man I loved very very much and never told him. A man that taught me so very much about the world around me and to appreciate everything it gave to us.A man who loved me and in his own way told me that but not in those words.A man I called my daddy.
April has always been, in my mind, a month that I related to spring. A month where the earths life cycle appears again for us all to see.With the melting of the wintery blanket of snow the world around us breathes new life. Buds are blooming all around us. A long cold winter is over and with new life comes new dreams for the comming season.
There is new life all around me. The birds have come back from warmer places to spend their mornings singing to me outside my bedroom window. Wanting to tell me that another day had dawned and to get up and live it.buggs are showing their pressence although not always a welcomed sight. And the new baby animals are in abundance this year all across the prairies.The caterpillars are crawling around and soon will be protected in their coccoons and will be emerging and embracing life as a new creature. A butterfly will be fluttering around me provong again to me that their is a higher power and making sure that the life cycle continues.
This season of new life and hope brings me much sadness.I notice what is going on in the world around me but I seem to be stuck back in the cold winter.A feeling of not wanting to move forward. A feeling I have that this season, my dad, is not moving forward with me.
So while trucking with Elmer I am seeing the world around me.I have been hiding out in my house that things were passing me by and I had not realized it.I seen the ducks swimming around the bodies of water that are in fields ditches and small ponds. They are happy. Playing and diving and living in the moment. I seen a beaver who had built his dam and had chewed about 3 trees right close to where he lived. so cute. As Elmer and I have different views on the beavers. He makes them out to be such distructive creatures and although I know they cause damage I also am realizing that there are many worse things going on in the world around me. I seen antelpoe, a moose cross in front of us one night and plenty of deer. The stars were exquisite every night and the sun sets beyond beautiful. There is nothing like seeing the sun set in the west as it crosses the whole width of the sky. With colours of reds, oranges and yellows and even sometimes a hit of purple. They are magnificent. I also seen a beautiful body of water in a still calm and the reflection of the white birch trees that lined the side of it towering way above.The stones and pebbles that lined the shore were perfectly white. A truely breathtaking sight.
All these things made me sad...for it was something daddy always told me to take a good look at. The simple things in our lives that bring us peace. Places that are there for all of us when we are down. I always look up at the sky at night. I look at the stars and the moon always knowing that since the day I moved away that my daddy was looking up at the same stars and the same moon. We were connected even though so many miles away from eachother.I know that I never told him I loved him but for some reason I guess I never thought I had to. The things we shared when we would talk always let me know that we cared for eachother. A connection beyond words. A connection we had with our surrounding, the simple pleasures we had with nature and the peace we both felt many times as we sat by the lake just listening to the sounds of the water and the birds. A peace that my daddy has given to me forever.
That is what made this trip so unbearable. So many things around me to remind me of him. So many things in this world that please me and I have never shared with anyone.How just looking up in the sky at night and seeing the stars always makes me smile even when I have had a bad day. I felt happy and sad during the last few days. I have also felt angry and at peace. I miss him lots but in my heart I know that when I truely take the time to notice my surroundings and all that is truely beautiful....my daddy is right there with me. Just like all the nights I would look into the sky hopeing that he had done the same that night and that we saw them together. I have never felt as far away from home as I do now. Now...I look up in the sky and all I see is that I am seeing them alone. We are connected in a different way. A way I do not even know how to explain. But..I feel it. I know he is here.
So....I finished that new book by Danielle Steele while I was away and I ate all my candies just like I would have when I went into dad's camp with him.The book was awesome..just what I needed and I realized how much I miss reading all the time. I seem to have been starting books but not finishing them. Time for me to curl up on a deck chair and do some more of that. It brings me happiness to read.And a peace within myself that I need to find again. So I will thank my sister on my blog for giving me that special gift. I bet daddy's happy right now!! Smiling at me as I have achieved some great things over the past 2 months. Like passing my exams( all of them )and finding peace in my life, no matter how small right now and at this very moment that it is. I am sure that is will become greater in time.
My daddy will never really be gone. I will always carry him with me. He has instilled in me everything that he was. A man who loved being around nature. A man who taught me how to love nature. A man who spent lots of time with me and shared his love and passion about being in a peaceful place and just to absord it all in.All the times when I was little and we would look up in the sky together taught me that there was beauty for everyone to see. I am my father's daughter. I am..for the most part...everything he was. he will never be far away as long as I take this gift he has given to me and share it with someone else.For this I am thankful!