At This Moment

" At this moment there are 6, 470, 818, 671 people in the world. Some are running scared. Some are coming home. Some tell lies to get through the day. Others are just now facing the truth. Some are evil men, at war with good. And some are good, struggling with evil. Six billion people in the world. Six billion souls. And sometimes...all you need is one."-Peyton Sawyer OTH


I sit in front of this computer with my fingers at the keyboard and I listen as the rain falls outside of my window, and my thoughts are on one person. My Dad. I don't know why, tonight of all nights that he seems to be on the fore front of my mind, but he's there. Maybe he's playing muse tonight, or maybe simply he's trying to just tell me that its time that I check myself, and get myself back on track.

In my twenty three years of life I have had three fathers. My biological one, who other than giving my Biological Mother a helping hand in my creation, hasn't had anything to do with me. Then there was my Biological Mother's husband, my step-father, who, well, I wont go into what he was. All I can say is this, he wasn't a father, not even close to a father figure.

And then there is my Dad. The only man in my life who showed me what a Dad truly was, that to be a dad is more than to just simply have the title, or to create a life, its what you do with that life. Its how you shape it.

My Dad was an amazing man. I can remember the silliest things about him. About how he would look when he first woke up in the morning, or the fact that he was hardly ever without a Coca-Cola in his hand. But aside from those things, its other things I remember.

I remember him trying to instill in all of his kids the importance of family, education, friendship, and love. I was a lucky girl, to have a Dad who would come to my room every night to sit and talk to me, whether it was just for a minute or fifteen minutes. Every night he would come in and talk to me. And every night before turning the light out and shutting my door he would say, I love Amber, a bushel's worth.

I was fourteen when my Dad died. And at the time it felt like my world was collapsing around me, and maybe it was. Perhaps for a long time after that nothing made sense in my world anymore. I dealt with every conceivable emotion that a person deals with after losing someone important. I didn't understand. I didn't understand how in one moment he was here, and in the next he was just gone.

Over time, I learned to accept it. No amount of praying, or crying was going to bring my dad back to any of us. But acceptance doesn't make it any easier.

I often times wonder if my Dad is proud of me. Proud of the decisions I have made, and I'm sure I have had some shortcomings in his eyes, but I wonder if who I am as Amber, as the woman that I am, makes him proud.

As I write this, I realize exactly what is that I'm trying to say. People can be gone so quick. All that it takes is a blink of an eye. Now their here, now their gone. Over the last week or so I have been on an emotional rollercoaster, and as my soul has finally started to settle and the pain has slowly digressed I realize something. It doesn't matter. What hurts you, what a person says, what happens none of that matters. What matters is this. Everyone in your life right now is there for a purpose. Every person that you care about is there for a reason. I didn't realize that, not this past week. Instead I wallowed in pain and hurt without opening my eyes and realizing that I have so much to be thankful for. So many people to be thankful for. More importantly I have some apologies to make, to the people who I have somehow hurt.

" Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."-Leo F. Buscaqlia.