Memories

I posted photos of you on Facebook yesterday, Daddy... pictures I forgot I had of me and you and all the things we used to do. But even those pictures don't tell our story. And those pictures surely don't describe the unfathomable grief and the mountains I've climbed just to live life without you.

I wish I knew how to explain to people that you were the air I breathed. My shining star. My biggest idol (and also my biggest fan.) My first love. My best friend. Ride or die. Other half. My daddy. And as an only child, all of these relationships were intensified x10. You hung the moon and were my sun.

I remember you every day like you're still here. I'm forever locked inside age 16, when I lost you. I'm still waiting for you to take me hunting/fishing/camping. I wanna find fossils with you. I wanna lie in the back of the truck and watch falling stars. I wanna mow the back yard while you sit and watch me. But most of all, I just wanna talk to you. Ride beside you in the truck on a sunset drive, counting deer on the side of the highway.

24 years since I've seen you. God, that number is a slap in the face! I've grieved long enough that I don't remember the bad anniversaries anymore... I don't count the Novembers when you were diagnosed. or the Januarys when they said chemo was a waste. Or the Mays when you slipped away. Instead I silently remember the November 23rds when you're another year older (in Heaven.) And I celebrate the Thanksgivings and Christmases with you in my heart - because we loved those holidays the most.

I do my best to tell the kids about the type of man you were and the things we'd do together - but it makes me sad because they'll never REALLY know how much you would've loved them and they, you.

The one blessing I can count is that I married a man that resembles you... He has your kind heart, your strong, forgiving hands, and eyes that hold the world for his little girls.

I love you SO much, Daddy... I hope that over the vast emptiness of time and space, you can feel that.