Mad Magazine…my daddy would have loved that so, so much!! It’s the kind of line that would have made him call me up and tell me to run look quick so that we could laugh together. <3
As for me, those who don’t know, my name is Heather. I will absolutely always respond to “Bill’s Daughter,” though. I am very proud to be his daughter!! I could never have asked for a better daddy, and I tried to let him know all the time what a wonderful daddy he was and how very loved he was. Before bed each night, I still tell him, speaking it out into the universe, hoping that he can hear me.
I came very close to joining Daddy in February. I had a near-fatal empyema. My lung was collapsed under nearly 3 liters of infectious materials, and I wasn’t expected to survive surgery. It was bad enough that the hospital broke their Covid protocols to let my momma come be with me in pre-op, sure it would be her last chance. I had hoped to see my daddy again while I was unconscious (I was kept in a medically induced coma and on a vent for several days), but I think he knew that if he came I would leave with him, and he knew it wasn’t my time. The surgeon told my momma how much worse it was than he had anticipated, and his anticipation was already quite grim. And nobody knows what caused it. I have remained a medical mystery for the past 5 months, as one thing after another after another is ruled out. It has been a very long, very slow recovery process, but I’m going to keep fighting to get better and better. It’s what Daddy would have done.
I’m not really sure where to start. I do want to thank all of you for all of your kind words, your prayers, and your head boops in response to the news of my daddy’s death last year. I’ve read every one. It warms my heart to know how well loved he was by so many people. Know that he loved y’all, too. The kind, wise, witty, positive man that you all knew was exactly who he was every day of his life. He didn’t know how to be anything different.
I have come here nearly every day to continue reading BCN, but rarely open the comments. I did the other day when the peep toads started back up. I wear my daddy’s peep toad shirt often, especially if I’m going to do something he would have really enjoyed, or when I am having to do hard, scary things. It is like carrying him with me. He would have been absolutely delighted by the Vaults and Vacuums story arc!!
Some of you have mentioned and asked about his cats. They are well loved and well cared for by myself and my little family. Tragically, we lost Henry to grief shortly after Daddy’s death. We did everything we could, the animal hospital did everything they could, he just gave up the will to live, he missed my daddy so much. And shortly after that we lost Lenore to old age. She was her normal fussy self right up to the end, and passed in my momma’s arms. Roscoe has become less and less shy, and even gives us his belly for rubs on a regular basis now. Diego continues to be a giant ball of love, and takes full advantage of now having 4 people to continuously pet him instead of just one. Pi has taken to sleeping by my head all day and all night. I think his people-picker is broken…he has already lost his previous 2 people and has now settled on the person with the worst health issues. If he was wise, he would have picked anyone else in our home. …
I went back and finally liked all of the comments from when my daddy passed. Sue Ellen is correct…it took me this long to be able to do that. 11.5 months. But I wanted to acknowledge all the kind and thoughtful comments that everyone left. At the time, it was all I could do just to read a few at a time, so I took screenshots and put them in a folder, and read them on occasion, when I was feeling strong.
I didn’t know it would flood everyone with a bunch of notifications, I thought it would just be the single one from liking the individual comment someone left. I just made this account a few days ago, and so far have only responded to a few posts, not started any of my own. I do plan to do that soon, though, since there have been several ponderings about my daddy’s cats.
It was the 14th, under one of the hot cocoa comments. My daddy loved hot cocoa and believed it to be the solution to most problems. At the very least, the jump start one needed to find a solution.
I’m here every day, I just don’t usually read the comments, and haven’t commented since letting everyone know about my daddy. He introduced me to BCN, and our mutual love for the comic is one of the things we shared that came up near-daily when we would talk. I’ve never stopped coming here every day, just now the rest of my family has to listen to me talk about cats they don’t know, and mice with sewing needles for swords, and July bugs.
Yes. Since I was always addressing everything as “This is Bill’s daughter” when I was posting from his account last year, it seemed right to make that name when I created my own account.
He would have absolutely LOVED this!! <3