the holidays always make me think about my poppa and the gatherings we used to have with Francine Coker Kim Tomplait Coker Trent Coker and Tonya Coker Hebert. I'd kill for just one more december like that.
"I'm gonna walk with my grandaddy,
and he'll match me step for step,
and I'll tell him how I missed him,
every minute since he left....
Then I'll hug his neck."
Thurman Coker♥ one of the best men i've ever known.
"I'm gonna walk with my grandaddy,
and he'll match me step for step,
and I'll tell him how I missed him,
every minute since he left....
Then I'll hug his neck."
Thurman Coker♥ one of the best men i've ever known.
My dad was a good man and most of our favorite holidays were the ones spent in his company...We would spend every Thanksgiving in Pine Grove on Coker Hill in the company of my brothers and me and our individual families, Fran and Thomas, and anybody who wanted to come to our "shin-digs". The day was filled with food, family, friends wandering in and out, football, skeet shooting, and lots and lots of BSing. It was great. It was fantastic. It was probably the best times of our lives. Christmas was spent in the same fashion, maybe a tad bit more hectic cause we always made the trek to Will's parents house as well.
Then came a life altering event for all of us...Daddy died. There were circumstances prior to his death that are too complicated to delve into now, but at the time caused extreme friction within the family. Things occurred that basically divided the family into two, and unto this day, each side truly believes that they were the one in the right.
Stubborn...yeah, I think so....
Fast-forward almost a year later...Another life-altering shattering event...Will died. This was devestating, not only to me and the girls, but to my whole family. Everybody loved Will. Sounds cheesy, but it's true. Will was a great person. End of story. One day, I am going to write a blog detailing his life. It's gonna take a while, and it is going to be really hard for me (emotionally) to write. I have mentally been writing it in my mind, and mentally been preparing myself for it...it is a story that needs to be told.
I digress.
With this second death in our family, we splintered. There were still bitter feelings from the upheaval we went through with Daddy's death and then something happened between myself and youngest brother, Craig, after we buried Will, that forever changed our family make-up.
Without going into sordid detail, and exposing nerves that are best left buried...let me just say that I can look back and realize that I reacted to a situation badly...instead of going to my brother and talking to him about it, I got angry. Boiling mad. Probably madder than I have ever been in my entire life. I realize NOW that I was going through the second stage of grief...anger...and Craig happened to be the person I could direct it at...after all, Will was gone...how can you be angry at a dead man?
Now, I am not saying that I didn't have the right to be angry. I did. And I still bristle when I think about what happened, but I can also look at my reaction and know that I did so with extreme vengeance and in a way that was completely and utterly out of character for me.
Being able to recognize this, I am at a crossroads. Can I let go of this anger and hurt and disappointment to try and rebuild a bridge....or forever wash my hands of it and never look back even though I know how much my children yearn for yesterday?
