EJC my blanket

I woke up this morning with thoughts of my step father. This happens a lot, but not quite like this morning. Today it was though he were a blanket, I felt him lift off of me as I became more conscious, aware of my surroundings. I got colder as the space where he was, became noticeably empty. I miss my Da. For those of you who don't know me, My step dad was my only Dad. We are Irish and so I affectionately referred to him as Da which is commonly used over seas, short for Dad. He called me Dot. Short for daughter. I call my own daughter Dottie sometimes, I always say it with a heart full of love and grief. I have lost a lot of people I love to death. It seems natural enough because we all die and yet, it is the most unnatural feeling to live without someone you love, someone who has always been there. I am almost forty two years old and I am still reeling over a death that happened when I was eighteen. The sadness never goes away, like the emptiness they leave behind can never be filled. I miss my Da. He was a good man. When I think of him, I wish most of all that I could hear his laugh. His smart short one, the one that would shoot out of his smile when someone said something sarcastic, unexpected, truthfully inappropriate. I miss that laugh most of all. He has been on my mind a lot lately as I try to define in my own mind why it is that I continually choose men who are bad for me and lock out all the good ones as though they are the problematic peeps. I thought of him especially the other day while driving up route 53 on my way home. The radio was on which is rare, I usually have a CD in. I was singing along with Pinks new song blow me one last kiss and suddenly as I rounded a corner, the station gave way to another and there was Elton John singing Levon. I could see me and my Da in his black Ford Taurus, driving by Boston College on our way to Chestnut Hill, it was Autumn and I was at the wheel, colors all around us as we passed the campus. We sang together at the top of our lungs "and Levon blows up balloons all day, sits on the porch swing watching them fly and Jesus he wants to go to Venus, leaving Levon far behind" I cried while I smiled, remembering that moment and longing to feel it again, if only for a split second of reality. When he died suddenly, the shock made the reality hard to comprehend. I feel like the shock is beginning to wear off - my Da is a blanket of dreams that I rouse from, not here for real anymore. He was the best man I ever knew. He is part of the reason that I write and part of the reason that I am not dead. Sometimes I think about the people who intervened in my life and gave me love when I felt none. I think that if it were not for them, instead of the artist angst I live with, instead of picking bad men who hurt me....I probably would be dead - gone to a bad drug addiction or a murder in an alley somewhere, a victim to some man that I couldn't identify through the haze of my own anesthetization. I would have surely been a statistic of a different kind had I not been intervened upon by a man like my step Father. I hope he knew that. I hope he knew that singing Elton John with him, kept me out of a dark alley. I miss his face. I miss his voice, I miss the way he crossed his legs, the way he smiled. The way that I ALWAYS FELT that I was getting his BEST. I wish he were more than a blanket I wake up with on lucky days. I wish that February 7th had come with warning so that I could have told him he was a blanket in my life back then, he preserved the garden in frost. I always think of him more in Autumn, his turtle necks and cowboy boots. He was so unexpected like that - a suit and tie guy with the most badass cowboy boots. I have them in my closet. When you are cold a blanket makes the difference. Thanks Da, I love you.