On Thursday July 16, 1992 my dad woke in the morning and left for work. Not unlike he had done nearly everyday of his life. He went to the warehouse where he picked up the 18-wheeler and drove south on Interstate 75.
He arrived at his first stop in Kentucky. Checked in with the warehouse and dropped over dead.
I was at work that morning. I worked a full day. When I arrived home my uncle was on the phone. He told me that dad died earlier that day.
Today, 25 years later, I’ve been thinking a lot about that day. The thought that keeps going through my mind is: “ You never know what you don’t know…until you know it.”
I understand that probably sounds silly. But, what I realize is that I worked that entire day not knowing that dad was dead. How often do things happen and we continue on with our lives, because we don’t know.
Obviously there isn’t a way to change this. Its impossible to know something before we actually know it. But that moment in time when you learn “the news” its like stepping through a wall of time that you can never return through. The heartbreak is attached and the only way to release any of it is to move forward, one step at a time, no matter how deep you fall into the darkness, no matter how difficult it is to lift your foot, you must move forward.
It took me a long time to move through the grief after loosing my dad. To date it was the most difficult loss of my life. I struggled. I sunk deep into a severe depression. I drug my feet…unable many days to lift them off the ground. But I did it. I survived. I found the light again and I embraced it.
Today I still think of dad, I miss him and still wish I could talk to him. But today I can do these things with a smile on my face not a pain in my heart.
Left – right: Grandpa Rabold, Dad, Great-Grandpa Rabold, Front Row: Brother (Matt)
Conversations Around the Tree 