the last chance.

So today is a year since I last spoke to you. 

I was up almost all night last night, thinking about you and reminiscing. I went back through our old text messages. I shouldn’t have done that to myself, I know that’s what made me lay awake all night. But I needed to see your words. I needed to hear your voice in my head. I needed to know I told you how much I loved you. 
Grief is STUPID hard. it hits you like a ton of bricks sometimes. I came out on my little balcony to look at the sky, wishing that as I looked I would get a sign of some kind. I hope the pain would go away, but it stayed. I cried the same way I did when I found out that my dad was gone. it’s the kind of crying that comes out, you can’t stop it, it’s coming from a deep place of pain. it’s the kind of pain that you cry and wish with all your might that it would reverse somehow, that things would be “fixed”, that it would all go away. I get mad when I feel that. it’s a completely lost feeling that makes me want to punch a wall, or scream at the top of my lungs. it’s a frustration and pain that is like nothing I’ve felt ever before. 

it’s not just loss in general that has me like this. it’s the loss of my very best friend on earth, the only person on the planet that had my back 100%, the only person who ever “got” me, the person I talked to 3 times a day every single day. the depth of the love I had for my daddy is absolutely unfathomable. I will never feel that again. 

I literally loved him more than anything. he could do no wrong in my eyes. I can seriously look back on my entire life and know that we were best friends.

the last chance I had with him was this day one year ago. the last chance to say what I needed to say, what I wanted to say, to hug his neck.

I remember it like it was yesterday. the pain hasn’t been alleviated one bit over time. it might as well have been yesterday, for me. 

he looked so sickly. he hadnt been eating or drinking much. I tried to fuss at him to convince him to eat. I told him I didn’t want him to die. I told him that several times. he cried that day, over a subaru commercial on his hospital room tv, and I remember tearing up myself and asking him why he was crying. he didn’t have an answer. but he knew. I know looking back, that he knew. 

I remember he was in pain. I walked up and down the hallway, trying to find a nurse, and I finally told someone at the desk that he needed some medicine for his pain. I told them this in a very inherited ‘Seagle temper’ kind of way. this is the temper I got from him, and he got from his dad. 

we said our goodbyes to daddy that evening. I hugged him and kissed him. Will kissed him. robbie shook his hand. mom hugged his neck. we thought we would see him again. we believed with all our hearts that he would be just fine, because we wanted him to be, so why wouldn’t he?

I walked out of his room, and turned around and ran back in. I hugged him one more time and I told him I couldn’t do without him. he knew I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t. and I haven’t done without him. I’ve been a wreck. 

what would I have done differently, had I known? I’d like to say I would have stayed up all night, telling him how much I loved him, how greatly I appreciated him, how lucky I was to have the most amazing human being as my dad. but, hindsight is 20/20, and you never fully know. there was no way for me to know. and I like to think that I told him enough while he was here. 

I still want to scream. I still want to punch something, until I break my knuckles. I wish that getting all my frustration out would bring him back to me. I still want to go back, and have another chance. I want a do over. but I won’t have it here, on earth. 

I survived this day. I’m alive. my eyes welled up with tears many times today. I can’t explain how much I miss him. it’s crazy how just this weekend, my body knew what was happening, and I started remembering the gravity of reality all over again. waking up at night thinking it was all a bad dream, just to realize it was real, all over again. 

this is year one of the rest of my life without my sweet daddy. I will someday know how to feel about that, but I still can’t process it at this time. I would do anything to have him back. anything. 

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I miss my dad.

Thanksgiving was hard this year. Thanksgiving day wasn’t actually that bad. My boyfriend and his wonderful family invited us over for dinner, so I didn’t really dwell on anything. 

The day after Thanksgiving was terrible. I cried all day. My heart was in shambles.

I’ve finally processed my dad’s death enough to not remember he is dead and have to deal again with it all over enough to have some normal moments. This week has been my first functional week at work. It’s been 49 days. I am just now able to look at my life and not want to leave it behind. 

I miss all the things he would say. I miss his grammatical perfection. I miss his habit of reading every book he could get his hands on.

He was reading three books about reincarnation when he died. Makes me wonder if he didn’t know he was going to move on. 

I still wake up nightly in a pool of sweat in my bed, and remember him lying there. I just have to wake up to remember what reality is. I don’t know why, it just happens. 

I’m so sad still. I guess I will be for the rest of my days. But I am glad to be functional again. Barely functioning is better than not at all.

Hallucinations

Maybe I am crazy. 

I have been told I am not, by a medical professional, because I was so worried about myself and my thoughts and my symptoms that I went to the doctor. She basically told me that I’m just grieving. To my dismay, this is normal. This is grieving. 

I’ve never grieved like this. 

I lost my grandpa (my dad’s dad) first. He had a heart attack in the middle of the night, and slipped away before he could be revived. I lost my grandma (my dad’s mom) last year in November. These two humans were more than grandparents to me. They were more like parents. I loved them dearly. Once when my grandma was sick, you could find me taking care of her as hospice came in and out of the house patiently waiting to comfort us. But she didn’t pass then. It wasn’t her time. I grieved terribly  for both of them. I longed for them. I can’t say how many times over the years I’ve gotten started thinking about my grandpa and just cried. I loved them immensely.

But this is different. It feels like my soul was torn away from me. It feels like I shouldn’t be here, like I am out of place existing where my dad doesn’t anymore. Every song, every store, every show, every bird, every blade of grass growing from the earth, every single thing– reminds me of his absence. 

Yesterday, I saw him. Call it hallucination. Call it what you will. I don’t care. I saw him, and there will be no convincing me otherwise. 

I was sitting at the bar with my boyfriend, watching State play. They were losing and I was just observing people and listening to all the random conversations. I looked ahead and to my left, I glanced, and I saw him. He was covered in a beam of light that shone in through the window onto his back. My daddy’s face was there. He was sitting at the bar, watching tv! It was incredible, and about the instant I realized it, without blinking or even fully realizing what I had just seen, it was suddenly another man. It was someone that had nothing in common physically with my dad. It wasn’t someone that looked like him. I didn’t think this guy was my dad for a moment, I SAW my dad sitting there. It was wonderful and comforting. I wish it had lasted longer and I wish I could have spoken to him. But I’ll take what I can get.

One night last week I remembered more childhood memories. They all come rushing in, flooding my tired mind, like a monsoon that somehow feels loving and happy, as it sweeps you away to drown. It’s always like that. I don’t remember just one thing, but several at once. I smile and cry, and then it’s like they get buried in the back of the filing cabinet again. I can’t remember them all from the other night. I know I cried, and fell asleep thinking, “I should write about these.” and then I got busy. 

One that I remember, is how my daddy used to play with me when I was a little girl. He used to hold my hands and let me walk up his belly and do a flip. And mind you, I was the same kind of child that my son is today- the one with neverending persistence. My sweet, poor daddy would let me walk up his belly and do flips back to the ground over and over and over again. And then he would let me convince him of one more time. 

He would also put my socks and shoes on for me. I remember being way too old to have him putting on my socks and shoes, I think I was about 6 or 7 when he finally stopped- but I loved it. I loved that he would do that for me. There is something about a child knowing that they are a pain in the rear, and being completely aware of it, but that parent still doing their best to please the child. It wasn’t any big deal, it was just my little frilly white socks and my white Keds. But I wanted more than anything for my daddy to put them on me every day, and he did, without ever complaining for one moment. 

Then of course, there was how he would let me bite his hand. I’ve always been a strange bird, it definitely runs in the family. I would get super hyper and “pinchy” as we called it. I would bite the fatty part of my daddy’s hand when I got super crazy and “pinchy”. You know, the fat, squishy part that is below your little finger. That is what I would bite. I would bite his hand until I left purple marks from all my tiny teeth. When Will was a little younger, he loved doing the same to me, just with my fingers. As my daddy’s body lay in his bed in ICU, with his soul standing in the corner watching as I like to believe, I kissed that fatty part of his hand and I apologized for all the times I bit him. The tears flowed. 

Then there was the time he was letting me hang my head out the window of his Subaru Legacy. This was the 80’s, folks. A booster thing was plenty enough for a three or four year old in the car. He had asked me to put my head back into the car before we got to our driveway, but being the child I was, I thought one more minute was fine. He pulled into our gravel driveway and I busted a front tooth right out on the window. He was stressed out and I left a blood trail behind me all the way out of the garage, up the stairs, across the deck, and into the house. He took me to the dentist there in town to get X-Rays and make sure everything was alright. I was fine, and he took me to Sky City after and bought me a kaleidoscope. I will never forget a moment of that day. 

Daddy always took me to the doctor and to the dentist. Always. I mean, always. Every shot I had, every time I was scared of something, he escorted me back and stayed right with me. Even as a teenager, when I was really sick, Daddy still took me to the doctor. When I first moved to Wilmington and slipped in a puddle of beer on a dance floor and tore my meniscus, guess who went to the doctor with his 21-year-old daughter? Yeah, the absolute best daddy in the universe. 

He used to take me out into the front yard after a thunderstorm to see a rainbow. Every time there was a rainbow, he took me out there to make sure I got to see it. Little did I know, until very recently, I think this year actually, he really disliked thunderstorms. 

I heard “Tears in Heaven” in a restaurant today. As much as I didn’t think I would make it through the song, I did, only because my boyfriend was putting in overtime to distract me. I had tears, but not enough to make me seem unstable because I was crying over my cheeseburger.

He was just my person. He was my best friend. He always believed in me and always thought I was good. He never got mad at me and was the most patient person with me. He was my sidekick and my partner in crime, my confidant and my hero. He kept me up to date on the world and made sure I was okay. Every day is a new battle. 

Grandparent’s Day was Friday. He wanted more than anything to be there. As I watched Will sing, I could think of nothing else but how Will was adorable and perfect on stage. You see, this is how I knew daddy was there, watching. Because since October 12th, I have been dreading Grandparent’s Day like the plague. But when it actually happened, I felt no pain. I felt no sadness. I had no worries. I know it didn’t hurt because he WAS there. It didn’t hurt because it was normal. There was nothing to be sad about, he was watching. He was there. I hope my little Will felt him too. 

God has a Plan

I went to walgreen’s today. My boyfriend parked the truck and turned off the ignition and I burst into tears. Daddy was here in June for Will’s birthday and mom mentioned that dad wanted a new brown belt and he hadn’t seen one anywhere. We went into walgreen’s that day and I bought him a $5 brown belt. He was elated with that $5 brown belt. My dad was a sweet man, and was happy about just about everything. He ripped the tags off and wore it to Will’s birthday party that day. I just gave my dad a $5 brown belt in June. He was just here, in June. He was happy, here on earth, with me, in June. Now he is somewhere else, far from me.

A friend posted on facebook last week about how people say, “God has a plan” to grieving folks. She spoke about how that doesn’t always comfort people and how that doesn’t always make sense. I find that to be true of my own grief. If this is God’s plan, I’m not sure how it will be good. I’m not sure how this will be best for everyone. It doesn’t seem right or fair that my sweet daddy isn’t walking in a physical body. He can’t hold Will on his lap anymore, he can’t read him books, he can’t eat fruit cake like he loved to at this time of year. The only comfort I find in any of this is that daddy can see everything we do, and he can be with us for anything he wants to be here for. We just can’t see him or talk to him. And that, is heartbreaking. 

I wake up 4 or 5 times a night, and remember again that he isn’t here. Every night. I drudge through the days looking forward to nothing, but seeing my dad again.  

Reliving Life

There’s something about this process that makes me relive all the moments with my dad. I’m not sure if it’s to verify how much he meant to me in my head, or to just remember everything and not forget one second of his existance. Losing someone that you loved with all of your being is definitely the strangest, and most painful experience I’ve ever had. You review information in your head like a research paper on your life. Then you ask yourself, “Could I have done more?”, which is always answered emphatically with a ‘Yes’. 

A weird thing happened this weekend. My phone crashed on me Friday night. I was so irritated that I was physically ill. All my photos. The last photos of my sweet daddy. Gone. I rebooted yesterday and I thought I would puke the whole time. Then something extraordinary happened- I got text messages back from last year that I hadn’t had on my phone before. (I don’t blame Apple, I blame myself for having upwards of 24,000 pictures of Will and not updating software on my computer OR phone for way too long.) These text messages, and getting them back, was what we call in the South, ‘A blessing in disguise’.

You see, on September 26, 2015 (my old wedding anniversary for a failed marriage, like that day could be any worse..) my dad had to go to the hospital for pneumonia. He had been complaining that he couldn’t breathe very well. There was a rumor of a tear in his aorta, but it wasn’t seen at the next hospital he went to, so it was forgotten. I was worried, but I was thankful it was just pneumonia and he could be taken care of and sent home. 

Then in December, he started to have SEVERE pain in his back while at work. He called my mom to take him to his doctor (the one medical professional he liked.) and they very soon ended up at the ER. My mom texted me around 4:30 that day to tell me what was going on. I didn’t hear too much else until my uncle Jonny (dad’s brother) called around 7:00 to tell me dad was in emergency surgery to repair an aneurysm on his aorta. 

I fell to my knees. I hit the floor. I screamed and cried. 

I was five and a half hours away, and my dad was in emergency surgery to save his life. I was beside myself. It was the worst worry I had experienced at that point in my life.

He made it through open heart surgery that night. But the sad part is, his mind didn’t, really. The open heart surgery aged him. It took away much of his memory. Our inside jokes, the people I used to tell him about, the things he was good at, the skills he had, the knowledgeable parts of his mind– were for the most part destroyed. We were told by a nurse at one point that since it was emergency surgery to save his sweet life, that his brain may not have gotten all the oxygen it needed. So that’s kind of where we were. I had him, but he wasn’t the same. It was almost like what I can imagine the families of Alzheimer’s sufferers experiencing, except definitely not to that extreme and he would come in and out of it. He used to be a technological genius in his age group- I mean, this man would trouble shoot any technical problems I had with my computer growing up, and even as a young adult. He was always on his laptop writing for blogs. Before he passed, he couldn’t use his ipad, or figure out how to use FaceTime, something that he previously used frequently to talk to Will and I. 

This was the hardest part of everything for me. He couldn’t text me. He could barely use his phone at all. He didn’t remember all the inside jokes. He could really barely understand what I was saying sometimes. He couldn’t really talk early in the mornings, because his mind seemed very cloudy. He didn’t get outside like he used to, he couldn’t lift certain things because of restrictions from the surgery, and he stayed in his reliner for most of his days over the past year. He was depressed, and now that I look back on it, I see why. I think he knew he was going to ascend to Heaven, and I think he knew he wasn’t himself and it was torturous for him. In a way, I think God was preparing me. He was letting me down easy. I wish I had seen that. It was too often that I would fuss at my dad and tell him to stop being so down and depressed, and I should have known better. I should have known he didn’t want to be that way, he wasn’t choosing to be sad and immobile. I don’t know if that guilt will ever pass.

Again this year on the same fateful day-September 26- my dad began to experience pain in his back again. It took many days to talk him in to going to get medical help. Yet another source of inescapable guilt: I talked him into getting medical help and it killed him. The doctor said he wouldn’t have made it to Christmas as he was, but to me that just sounds like I could have had a few more months with my daddy. Sixty or more days? What I wouldn’t do to get a mulligan on that…

Then there’s the fact that eventually, on October 12, 2016, his brain was the organ that took him out. However it happened, his pupils being dilated and being told that in a few hours we would “see brain death” was like a wave of darkness rushing in over my life, shrouding all I had and all I remembered and all I saw, in a dark, heartbreaking, irony. My dad’s brain was what was so amazing about him. He was one of those people that could tell you dates of historical events off the top of his head. He was extremely well read and was an avid writer. He wrote beautifully, from his soul. He had a love for the sciences and would take me outside each year for the Equinox to watch him balance an egg on end, because of the gravitational changes. He loved stars, planets, and space, and I can fondly remember spending hours outside with him at night as a teenager, watching the stars with a telescope he bought me. He was a brilliant man with a wonderful heart. His brain being what took him from me is a gut-wrenching pain that I know for sure will never dissipate. 

However, the good memories are shining through for me today. Each day is different; it’s like spinning a wheel of emotions when my alarm clock goes off each morning. Then again a few hours later, then again in five minutes, then again when day becomes night.

Today, I went to a Chinese buffet. I recalled how my dad loved so much going to a good Chinese buffet, and eating crab legs until he felt like bursting, then taking a break, and going back for more. I ate enough plates today for my dad and myself. 

Then there is the zoo we went to last summer. My dad was overjoyed to see Will enjoying all the animals. Things like that make me happy. I’m happy we made the time to go. I’m happy he had that experience before he left earth.

Often, I think about all the things he’s finally getting to experience. My dad’s hero was John Lennon. Always was. I think my dad mourned Lennon’s death like the death of a family member. I think often about how dad has finally been able to meet his hero. I know my dad went to Heaven but John being there might be questionable to some, but I like to think he is, and that my dad gets to hang out with him every day now. I like to think about how my dad finally knows all the secrets to the universe. I imagine he can see the stars from a whole new vantage point, and that he has learned all there is to learn about all that the universe has to offer. I like to think that he has all the answers to all the things he wanted to know now, because that’s who he was, a man that sought knowledge. 

There’s so many questions that I don’t have answers to, but maybe I will eventually. 

My most comforting thought is that he can see all that Will and I do now. I feel him at work, where Will goes to school. When we are all gathered for some special event, I feel him there. I know he is there. He is watching his little ‘Prince’ and feeling proud. 

All the Reels

You know that reel of film in your head, that looks grainy like an episode of “The Wonder Years”, but contains all your childhood memories? Yeah, my reel was the best. My reel was full of giggles and mischief, hiking and not wearing shoes, love, acceptance, lessons, and positivity. My reel was laden with my dad being silly. I have home videos somewhere of my dad filming me while I poke a grub worm with a stick, occasionally getting the heebie jeebies and jumping up in a squeal, while he stands and narrates the video. he’s sarcastic. he’s making fun of me in the absolute most loving way, and it’s so funny. he had these tones that he would use sometimes when I was a kid, and it was something I’m sure that was a direct result of existing through the 80’s. it’s like he was that person that marveled at kids– especially at me– and when I did something that was laughable from an adult perspective, he laughed and joked about it, but it was in a tongue in cheek Disney movie kind of way, that never made me feel like I was being laughed about, it was just all in good fun. times like that– those memories are the ones that have flooded back to me in the past 22 days.

I remember the day he was dying, as I stayed in bed trying to absorb the nuclear blast that had just microwaved my soul and everything I knew to be true and good, one Christmas in particular came to mind. My whole family was at my house. Everyone was living back then, and we still got together because it didn’t make anyone sad. The cousins and I were all small (I think I was six that year.) and they would come over and entertain me. I will never forget- I was wearing this purple and navy jumpsuit with a bib, you know, the ones that were awesome in 1991 with a pair of black Mary Janes and some frilly socks. I had chicken pox and they were all over my little face. My cousin and I were bound and determined to set up and use my Easy- Bake Oven. My dad was prowling around the house with the camcorder (which was nothing short of amazing in those days.) and sneaking up on my mom and aunt. Every time they looked up to see my dad secretly filming their conversations as 30 something year old women, they would laugh hysterically until tears rolled down their cheeks, bumping other less aware family members out of the way to get out of the room. My dad laughed, too. My dad was cracking up. He even went so far as to set the camcorder up in one room, and secretly film my mom and aunt being ridiculous without him around. When they discovered it, my aunt’s first thought was, “I was scratching my back the whole time!!”. That playfulness was who he was. Shenanigans and laughter, jokes and pushing the limits. That was who my dad was. And thank God, that’s who I am, as well.

The really admirable part about my childhood, about my dad’s laughter and his happiness, is that they had just faced an unthinkable tragedy just a few years earlier. When I say a few, I mean, really, three years prior to the camcorder at Christmas, my mom and dad were burying my sister. Now it takes some kind of perseverance, some kind of love, and some kind of faith to be able to be a family and have that kind of unbreakable spirit. They did it because they loved me. My daddy laughed because he loved me. He wanted my childhood to be normal. He wanted to be himself for me. I have never questioned his love for me. My reel was full of out takes but it was full of love.

Pain tinged with Happiness

Today has been a month since I lost my best friend on the entire planet.

Fittingly, I was having night sweats all night last night. That’s happened pretty frequently since he passed. The only other time I experience that kind of anxiety is when my son is away for the weekend at his dad’s.

I feel like I see my daddy in my dreams, and the nights that I do, I can control my grief the following day. That’s my theory, anyway. I wake up at night and remember seeing him, but when I go back to sleep all I have is a faint recognition of his face in my head.

This grief creeps in over my heart like kudzoo running up the walls on an old tin roof barn. My heart aches and constantly I remember that he isn’t there.

Daddy would have called today ‘a day’. Once I went to Taco Bell or Wendy’s or something like that, with him on the phone. I left the drive thru window and told him that the window attendant had just told me to “have a day”. Oh my God we laughed and laughed about that. “Not have a GOOD day, but just have a day. Exist today. Just have life.”, he went on. We thought it was the funniest thing, just because stupid little things like that were hilarious. He was no stranger to jokes about drive thrus, though. Years ago when I moved to Wilmington, he used to make jokes about one particular Taco Bell that I would frequent, proclaiming that they “are using their feet to make your food. That’s why they are taking so long.” Every time I went to that Taco Bell I had to call him. I think I spent 90% of my life talking to him, I swear.

Today Will called me ‘Momma’ and he said it in the sweetest way. I told my boyfriend Robbie how much I love it when he says that. I realized that I love it so much because that is what my daddy called my grandma, and that’s what he called her until the day she died. Thankfully, they are back together now. I said outloud to my dad last night that I hope they are all sitting around a table in heaven, eating chicken pot pies and fruit cake together. My daddy loved that stuff.

For a few weeks, I haven’t been able to get it off my mind how he used to make chirping cricket sounds. I have no idea how the man ever managed to figure our how to do that, but he could ‘whistle’ just like a cricket. He would do it a lot when I was a kid. I always thought it was super cool because my dad was the only person I knew that could do that. He still was, to this day.

It’s the little, random, weird things that you miss and that make you ache inside when someone is gone.

He also used to do this thing when I was about Will’s age, where he popped me with his finger. I have no clue how he did that either, but it was hilarious and frightening at the same time. I would get this build up of excitement in my little body and I would squeal every time he did it. He would relax his ring finger somehow, and hold the others together, and just sling that ring finger in my direction. It was exactly like being popped with a towel, except of course my dad didn’t do it that hard. Some of my most vivid memories of him are of times like that.

I just can’t believe he is gone. I can’t believe I’ll never get him back. Thankfully, the anger with God is wearing off. I am glad. I mean, it might come back, but I hope it doesn’t. When something shakes you to your core, it’s hard to not be mad at the Man in charge. But I hate that feeling. I hate knowing that I have been angry with Him.

I come in and out of being paralyzed with heartache. The sweet memories make me smile.

 

Loss

Loss. Grief. words. they are words. you don’t actually know what they mean until you have experienced them. the same goes for that other word… love.

I lost my dad 21 days ago.

this week has been the hardest yet.

people who have spoken to me with tears in their eyes.. they’re the ones that know. they know the pain. it’s a pain that you cannot begin to fathom unless you’ve been there. and as I see through others, the pain never goes anywhere, it just becomes a focus on the outward ring of life. instead of the pain being the sun in your solar system, it eventually dulls and becomes Mars, or Jupiter. those people can very easily bring the pain back to the forefront. which means, it never leaves.

I don’t know how I will survive this. I have a beautiful little boy who my daddy loved more than anything, so I do know I will, I just don’t know how.

this blog was originally named “Must Love Will– Adventures in the Shallow End of the Dating Pool” but now I see that the purpose of this blog– of the title, “Must Love Will” is for me to utilize it to get through this time in my life. the absolute darkest time I have seen. because I must. love. Will. I must get through this.

my dad… man, my dad… he was my best friend. if I can just stop picking up my phone to call him to tell him things every day, that will help a lot.

I am lucky to have had the relationship with him that I did. I was always his clone. we were always two peas in a pod and that man would talk me through any situation I got into. I miss that so much.

I’m still in shock or something. he was too young. 64 is not a time to die. 64 is time to be a “pop pot” and time to move to the beach to be with your family. it’s time to get your stinkin’ aorta replaced and heal up and be a brand new man. I feel like I was robbed. I told him, I told him I couldn’t be without him. he knew I couldn’t. but he had no control over that.

I keep having to go through all the memories in my head. the ventilator breathing for him. screaming crying while I stroked his forehead. the ICU nurses with tears rolling down their faces. telling him how much I love him. not wanting to believe it at all, any of it. and then seeing him, not moving, not breathing, cold in the bed. I have to run it all back through my mind to remember. it really is remembering. it is reliving the events of his death to believe it’s real all over again. I forget almost. I bury it during the day. I place it in my pocket. until something jars me back into the present and I have to remember. then I run through the memories. I have a whole list of things in my grief-stricken brain that I have to review each time, things that he won’t see or do. he’ll never get the coffee mug I bought him in charleston. he’ll won’t be able to tell me he’s proud when I finally get my BA. I can’t call him to tell him something funny. I can’t see him at thanksgiving or Christmas this year. no one can ask for his permission to marry me. these things, I have to go through them over and over to accept how much they hurt.

everyone keeps telling me God has a plan. things happen for a reason. I do believe that, I do, somewhere in the part of my heart that isn’t cold. I just cannot, for the life of me, see why there would be a reason to take such a wonderful man from his family. my little boy…. my baby will never know the person that loved him the most. I don’t see any good in that.

a part of me went with my daddy. the part that laughed and smiled all the time must have gone with him. I haven’t been the same since. I miss myself, but not as much as I miss him.

grief is a weird word. just as weird as loss and love.

whoever said its better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all– that person had obviously never lost their daddy.