S.H. Roddey

As all three of you who read my blog know, I lost my father three weeks ago.

I don’t know how to deal with that.  It’s like the worst possible nightmare come true.  Being three hours away from my mother, it’s easy to pretend sometimes that it didn’t happen, that everything is still okay and I dreamed the last month and a half.  But then I remember that next time I go home, he won’t be sitting in his chair with the TV at full volume.  He won’t be shuffling around the corner to hug me.  He won’t make Mom call me twice a week just to find out what the baby is doing.

I’ve never felt so broken before.  I’ve walked through life in a fog, and I honestly don’t understand much of what has gone on.  I don’t want to think about it but I can’t make it stop.  I want all of this to go away and things to go back to how they were in mid-February, when we were all blissfully ignorant of my father’s blocked arteries and the threat of open-heart surgery that would succeed but ultimately cost his life due to his weak lungs.  I want to go back in time and lay my infant daughter in her grandfather’s arms again.  I want to watch his eyes light up again and listen to the two of them have a conversation, him in his thick accent and her in her sweet baby-babble.  I wish he could hear her laugh.   I wish she would remember him.

I wish we had more time.

At some point in the last three weeks I started writing again.  I don’t really remember writing, but I have been.  Whatever it was turned into a 9,000 word short with the working title “Devil’s Daughter.”  After rereading it yesterday I discovered that it is extremely personal, and anyone who knows me will immediately see what I’ve done.    Aside from express grief.

I won’t say much else about the story except that it’s in Beta now.  With any luck it will make an appearance on e-shelves very soon.

It’s amazing I’ve finished anything at all because I spend so much time walking around in circles trying to make sense of the last few weeks.  Not only have I lost my father, but a good friend’s grandmother passed away last week.  While sitting at dinner we received a message that a good friend in Ohio passed away as well.  When it rains, it pours… and I’m ready for the rain to stop.  Both figuratively and literally…it has been raining for three days here.  Not helping with mood improvement.

On top of that I really need to do a better job of keeping up with public obligations.  ConCarolinas is in two weeks and I’m so not ready for it.  At least with Fandom Fest it’s a little way off so I have time to prepare.  I guess that means regular blog posts in all of my outlets, swag orders, and all the fun that goes with playing Public Figure.  Have to get back on the SSS kick and Tuesday Tales.  Have to start back up with Punk You.  Also need to start up the Wicked Muse Society.  It’s time to get it off the ground and let our muses start running wild again.

Most of all, it’s time to stop being so miserable.  The drugs help for a little bit, but what will make the biggest difference is getting caught up on sleep, seeing my mother this weekend, and time.

Since I can’t have what I really want, so I suppose I have to take what I can get, huh?