{"id":1424,"date":"2016-07-28T02:53:52","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T02:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2016\/07\/28\/7-years\/"},"modified":"2016-07-28T02:53:52","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T02:53:52","slug":"7-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2016\/07\/28\/7-years\/","title":{"rendered":"7 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

anyahatesbunnies<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

My dad died on July 16, 2009, from complications of a spinal cord injury. The day before he died, he and my family were asked to contemplate our choices regarding his end-of-life care. His choice was to receive no medical treatment for his failing organs \u2013 he wanted to go quietly and on his own terms, and he did. I was 23 years old.<\/p>\n

I think about my dad a lot around this time every year. But I think about you, too.<\/p>\n

You were one of my best friends, and you weren\u2019t there for me when I needed you. You gave me a lot of reasons why you couldn\u2019t be, and I don\u2019t know how many of them were true, but one of the things you said was that you couldn\u2019t go back to that awful place. Your father died when you were too young, and his illness was too long, too painful. The wound was still too fresh, and to talk about it, to be there for me, would have destroyed you.<\/p>\n

I hated you then. We both said cruel things, and then we went on with our lives, without our fathers and without each other.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve a lot of time thinking about how July of 2009 played out. I\u2019ve spent a lot of time hating you, and when the anger cooled, I spent a lot of time trying to understand.<\/p>\n

In May of 2011, my best friend Melissa\u2019s father died of cancer. I wondered \u2013 feared<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 dreaded<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 if you were right. Could I do this? Could I be there for Melissa in spite of my own fresh grief?<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t about me. It was about Melissa, her family, and what they were going through. I tried to be the best damn friend I could be, and I don\u2019t know how well I succeeded, but we\u2019ve both gone on with our lives, without our fathers but with each other<\/b><\/i>.<\/p>\n

You were wrong.<\/p>\n

This post isn\u2019t about you. It\u2019s about Melissa, Krista, Simon, Rachelle,\u00a0Maren, Mel, Rose, Amy, Ashley, Courtney, Erin, Laurelle, Charise, and every person who grants me the extreme privilege of calling them a friend. Feels are icky, compliments are difficult, and hugs make me nervous. But 7 years running, July seems to be a time of reflection. To my friends, who never hear this enough: I love you. You are awesome. Thank you.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

oh geez what a time to take a sabbatical from tumblr! Thanks for pointing me at this post.<\/p>\n

Yes, Cori, you did<\/i>\u00a0succeed. I would not have survived that year without you. These last few years, without my friends, would have been impossible.\u00a0But seriously, I don\u2019t know how I could have handled it without your constant support and your understanding. Where I had some friends who were MAD at me for not sharing my feelings of anger and frustration and sadness, you got that I had to try to stay strong and stoic. You cheered me up and let me be distracted. You helped me talk things through and didn\u2019t make me hug when I wasn\u2019t ready, and I wasn\u2019t ready most of the time. I couldn\u2019t cry because I had to be strong, even though I was so heartbroken and so sad \u00a0and so devastated, and it was so nice to have a friend who totally got that. Who would be my friend even when I wasn\u2019t there emotionally, who kept inviting me to stuff even though I said no for a very long, long time, and who kept in touch even when I didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Friends come and go. We\u2019re all growing and changing and moving in and out of each other\u2019s lives all the time. But sometimes you find someone that you just need to hold onto.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ILUSFM, CORI. <3 Thank you for being the best. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

anyahatesbunnies: My dad died on July 16, 2009, from complications of a spinal cord injury. The day before he died, he and my family were asked to contemplate our choices regarding his end-of-life care. His choice was to receive no medical treatment for his failing organs \u2013 he wanted to go quietly and on his … Continue reading 7 years<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}