Day 411

Hi Dad,

Wow 411 days, that's incredible.

 

(Found this one today, it made me smile)

I had a hard "dad day". It was one of those days where you just keep popping up over and over. There can be days that no one talks about you, no one acknowledges your absence, no one addresses how much it still hurts that you're not here. Most days the only reminders I have of you are when I walk in and out of our mudroom and I see your picture on the counter... or when I get into my car and pull the sun visor down and your prayer card falls on me as you say, "hello!"... or when I look down at my hand a million times per day and see your birthstone on the ring on my finger. So as you can see, not very much. ;) But today I had an emotional day at work with some 'new doctor growing pains' and just as I was starting to feel really sad about it, Amie texted me and said she had a dream about you:

Of course, it did make me cry.

Then, I found out Ben Loe's baby was born!! His name is August or "Gus", and its after his grandfather. He's so so cute. Ben is one of the friends I felt like you knew really well and always really loved, and I thought how excited you would have been to hear about his baby. You loved babies and I could imagine that you would have given him a great big excited congratulations. I feel like you were channeling it through me and it was making me more excited for him than I already was. 

And then every happy thought somehow comes with a sad one - and seeing everyone's excitement about the birth of other people's babies makes me think of the day I'll have a baby - and it breaks my heart over and over thinking about not having you there to be ecstatic and proud of us that day and boasting about it to everyone you know (and probably everyone you don't know, and everyone who will listen). Watching you with my baby, and seeing how happy it would make you would been one of the happiest things I could ever experience. The thought of not having YOU there makes me feel like I had one of most, if not THE MOST precious moment of my life stolen from me.

So then, just as I was having my hundredth breakdown of the day, Leeann texted me that she saw this and it made her think of me: 

It's so true. There is so much love, Dad, with no place to go. Sounds awful, I guess, to say that, but it wasn't made for anyone else but you and it's always going to be that way. I miss you, Dad. So much. Life will never be the same. 

Love,

your baby girl