Say Something...

This song is on all the time and it kills me every time I hear it.  It’s a sad song as it is, but since we’ve spent more time in the past few months with dad, driving him around for errands, this song has been on the radio several times while he was in the car with us.  Every time he points it out, asks who the woman in it singing is, and seems generally interested in the song.  We talk about how sad it is and how it’s hard to listen to and he agrees.  It’s odd to have any sort of conversation with my dad about “feelings”.  We just never were the type to open up – especially him, and we sort of took after him.  So now I let my mind wander about why he is interested in this song and I really find it heartbreaking.  Even though FTD is supposed to strip you of your feelings and emotions early on, and this should have been done long ago in my dad’s case, I feel like sometimes now he is more heartfelt and personable than he ever was before.  We have found the letters my mom wrote him years ago, pleading with him to get help for his anger, for his animosity towards her and her family…which he never did.  But he seems to still read all the notes she wrote to him because they were kept close – with all his crossword puzzle books he did on a daily basis.  I wonder how much that gets to him and how many regrets he has.  Whenever I hear this song now I think about all the what-if’s.  What it must represent for him and the wife he pushed away, their relationship beyond repair.  What it means to us as his children, how all we wanted was to be noticed and to feel like he was proud of us – which we never got.  And to himself – almost as if it’s a cry for help we didn’t hear until now….14 years after his symptoms started.