i finished the book.

Well as of last night I finally finished the book I had been reading for almost a year now. It was only about 400 and some pages but it took me quite a time to read.

I read slow…

no just kidding I was taking my time with it.

I know I mentioned I was reading the book I gave my father while he was in a rehab center.  The book is named GHOST RIDER, and is about the drummer from the band RUSH. After losing his daughter in a car accident and a year later loosing his wife to cancer. Feeling lost and living with the ghosts of there memory he decides to take a touring trip on his motorcycle covering over 50.000 miles, along the way documenting his travels and trying to learn to cope with his loss.

I bought this for my father one year mostly cause I figured it would give him hope. That he might be able to cope with his own form of pain and suffering. That he could go on with is life and be able to see that in the end it can work. That life will still go on.  Well He never finished the book cause he passed away that summer. So in the book was left a bookmark where he left off. Almost finished but not quite there.

This whole time I wanted to finish it to get over the point he couldn’t. Trying to get through my own form of mourning. Knowing my father didn’t finish a book he was given. One thing I could count on was him finishing a book, no matter what. I still feel pain from his death sometimes. I’m sure that’s to be expected. Its like a wound never completely healed. He was taken so fast and unexpectedly, so you can say sometimes its kind of hard. Even the simplest things sometimes make me burst out with tears. Oil and grease on the skin, giving off that smell that can only come from being a mechanic. The name patch that was attached to his shirt, that I ripped off as we were burning his clothes. His wallet, reading something he wrote. All kinds of things trigger those sleeping memories. I miss him sometimes.

Well as I was reading the book I felt as if I trying to face my memories. Trying to get to that first point. The bookmark. The bookmark represented more than just a place mark it represented my father. This whole time I kept putting the book down and going back to it. I guess in my own way not wanting to reach that point in the book where he left off. So I would leave it for weeks, months, and then try and go back to it. Always getting closer, sometimes to close for comfort. And me being the person I am I read one thing at a time. I don’t start another book until I finish the one-im reading. I try and give the book my whole attention. Well as I passed the bookmark I didn’t feel completion or sadness. I honestly don’t know what I felt. But last night I decided to finish the book to wipe it from my list so I could go on to something else. So I start on the last chapter and it hits me like a ton of bricks I start to cry and realize its almost over. I made it past the bookmark, to the end of the book. I sat there and through tears I finished the book that he didn’t finish.

Talia later asked me what did I learn from the book. I had to think about it a bit, honestly cause I think I was trying to get through my own mourning and trying to let it all sink in. the story as well as my own story. Then I came to realize that the point of the book is that “life will go on” that if you want there is always a reason to carry on, that “love” will always conquers all. 

Or as my father would say, “what’s done is done” he would shrug his shoulders and carry on with whatever task he was doing.  simple words, and a simple gesture, but in the end something that still makes me remember.