When people ask me who my role model is or who inspires me most, the first thing that pops into my head is a big bright picture of my Dad, smiling. They called him the Flippin’ Deacon, because yes, he was in fact a Catholic Deacon at his church in the last few years of his life, and yes in fact after he become ordained he continued to salute his fellow colleagues, friends, loved ones with a good ole fashion flip of the bird- his personal touch on the “hello” and the way his community will always remember him as- real and loveable.

He was... is... my everything. I’ve experienced some various forms of trauma in my personal life, but the hardest and thus most traumatic thing that I’ve gone through is the day my dad died, and the year that followed.

Just three weeks before I would be heading West for Andy’s and my wedding, I was out of work early shopping for some wedding week outfits (stuff girls do, I guess), when I walked out of the store to two missed phone calls from my sister, and a message from my grandma telling me to call right away. The news was that my dad was in an ambulance outside his church, and the paramedics were “working on him”, my grandma said. I didn’t have the courage to call my sister back because I knew she was panicking and I didn’t have the stamina to respond quite yet... I was in survival mode.

Driving back to my apartment, my grandma had said to wait for their call, “don’t drive here yet, we just have to wait” (at the time, I lived about 30 min from my family). Apparently, he had collapsed at the church during a break from teaching a baptism class, and that was all anybody would tell me.

I obviously didn’t listen to my grandma for much longer after no one was calling me back... I couldn’t just sit around. So I rushed back to my car and headed home.

It was the longest drive of my life. I imagined lots of scenarios as I waited for a phone call back and drove the seemingly empty highway road....He was just sick, his heart gave out but they revived him and he’s gonna be okay, it was a false alarm and he just had a dizzy spell... but the one scenario that kept infiltrating my thoughts, and somehow I just knew it was true ... was the one that he was dead, his heart died.

That’s the ironic thing about Petey having a heart attack... in his death, his heart has never been more alive. It’s in all of us, and somehow reaching more hearts than ever imagined, and beating stronger amongst his community than I could have ever anticipated. He died, yet after his death, his memory and message has truly come to life.

Finally, my grandma picked up and I could hear my mom speaking in the background... “is that Sam? I’ll take the phone.”

That’s the moment when my infiltrated thought became reality- she didn’t even have to speak, I knew exactly what she was going to say...

“He didn’t make it, babe.”

There’s nothing quite like hearing the words that the greatest man you’ve ever known, “didn’t make it.”

They had waited to call me because they didn’t want me driving after hearing the worst news I might ever hear in my lifetime. But there I was, driving down the highway to the inevitable doom that my dad was no longer in my world.

Fiancéeless at the time, Andy was across the country on a work trip. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alone in my life. Sometimes I think about him being there with me instead that day, riding shotgun.... would that have made the void I felt any less?

My dad was my best friend. A daddy’s girl to the core, my childhood was filled with driving passenger in his car to soccer games, outings, basketball practice, the movie store, picking up pizza, and stopping for his cigarettes, sitting next to him on the couch watching Bears games, shark week, cash cab, and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. He was my biggest fan- never missed a game, never late to pick me up from literally anywhere I was, ever... always encouraging me to make the bigger jump, think logical but DREAM BIG. I always felt I could do things in life because he was behind me, beside me, carrying me or holding my hand. I was never alone.

Yet, that car drive was the first time I felt truly alone. Symbolic I suppose, as most of my memories muffle together in one image of my dad- an image of us, together, in his car.

The wedding. After the feeling of immense aloneness flushed through my body, my next thought was of the wedding. I've only said this once outloud before, and to a fellow therapist friend, because I felt and still feel a tremendous and overwhelming sense of guilt to even acknowledge that I had the selfish thought, now what do I do??

But the question of the wedding quickly turned from concern to action... I get married. That is what I do, because that is exactly what Petey would have wanted me to do. And next, it was just convincing everyone else that I could do it.

Everything that happened after that phone call is a bit of a blur of emotional trauma and cold realizations fused together in this black hole I carried around with me in my stomach for the next year... seeing his lifeless body for the last time, his wake with over 1,500 strangers feeling sorry for me and saying over and over “OH your poor wedding!” (their exact words were variations of this, but to me it all sounded the same, repetitive and quite frankly, it made me want to scream and yell at everyone to shut up and get their sh*t together), ...speaking at his funeral to another 1,000 people and trying to explain in 15 minutes how the most important man in world just left us, the actual wedding without him- he was suppose to marry us and perform the ceremony, my father daughter dance with our best man, my mom’s speech, leaving a tumultuous job for private practice without asking him what to do and what direction to take, moving to Colorado just a short 6 months later with him not scoping out homes for us ahead of time or driving across country with a U-Haul like I know he would have, finding a new job minus his pep talks, and basically doing every stupid little thing I used to do with his input and help, without him.

All in all, I was a mess, except I pretended to be okay as if I had just run a marathon, didn’t shower but used some baby wipes, dry shampoo, and some perfume instead. The stink was still there.

After therapy, and after a great idea from my cousin who lost her dad, my dad’s best friend, just a few months prior to my Petey's death, I decided to use my dad’s message to get me through this black hole of grief. And now, I honor the monthly anniversary date of his passing by reminding someone in my life they are loved and they are special. A pay-it-forward kind of action. This allows me to continue his legacy of love, and kindness, selflessness, service and to add a tiny piece of action to the humongous footprints he has left behind and that we must fill.

The point of all this brings me back to the Flippin’ Deacon, and in essence back to the very reason I’ve decided to be vulnerable in my experiences and share my pain with you all.

The Flippin' Deacon to me, symbolizes a need for the balance of humanity and professionalism in order for real love and movement to take shape. The community responded to my father because they RELATED to him. He was far from perfect, a rebel in his early days, a misfit and a mischief... his brokenness became his message. He was the man, everyone's man. I mean, they named an entire Hall after him and built a brand new playground in his honor. He was ultimate in genuineness. Yet, not a day went by that he did not take great care of his responsibility to his people. He was funny, loveable, laughable, real, FIRST.... and then he was a professional.

You can be real and professional, but you can’t always be professional and then real. So as I continue to walk in his footsteps I will continue to utilize my experiences, my pain, my struggles, my learned strengths to communicate my message of responsibility and care to you all as my readers, and to my clients. My dear friend said to me, “You walk with a limp”... as in my scars are present AND they ignite my passion to help. Thus it must be my purpose to share AND to be professional.

So...you can call me the limping therapist...ah, the wounded healer. I'll own that.

And if that means that I'm unconventional, then there's no part of me that wants to be conventional.

Thanks Petey. #belikePetey

If you feel like crying (I know I always need a good cry, it helps me heal… ;))... Listen to: my father-daughter wedding dance song: Red Robin by Clark Richard

GOOD rain.