~~Dad - I Miss You~~

Today I spent lunch in a nice restaurant by myself in deep thought. I miss my Dad. He's been gone over a year now and it seems to be hitting me now instead of then. Perhaps too much was going on then, but it hurts now.

It hurts alot. I miss the idea of him. The thought has finally sunk in that I will have another conversation with him. I'll never hear his voice again. Never again will I hear him call me daughter or laugh with me about something silly. I can't bring myself to pull his email address out of my contacts list, but I'll never use it again.

I can't call him on Father's Day and to be honest, it hasn't bothered me so very much till recently. It started before I found his last Christmas card to me with the letter in it. It was the last letter he wrote me. He hated writing letters. (and mentioned so in the letter itself). He hated writing letters....but he did. He will never know how much that meant to me that he took the time to tell me what he was thinking......

There are memories I have that recently have been coming to mind as if on video. I see them as if a spectator. The summer I turned 11 on the farm in TN. We had a little blue VW bug. We were washing it and he chased me around it in his work clothes. I really thought I could outrun him but that man moved fairly quickly for an older man in dress shoes.....that was so much fun.

The Christmas I turned 16 I sang a solo for the church in Arizona. What Child is This? He was an Usher at the time and stood in the back of the church between the swinging doors with his hands behind his back in a blue suit. Smiling. That was the first time he ever told me he was proud of me. He approached me just to tell me he was proud of me.

That was the same year my Dad ever first stood up for me. Even coached me on how to handle a bad situation. Oh he'd love this year!

I remember.

The effort he put forth to teach me how to parallel park. He pulled out the kitchen chairs into the road. (they were a bit banged up afterward) Teaching me how to save money. Advising me on the opposite sex. Teaching me about the farm animals.

Farm animals. He named one of our puppies In The Way!

Oh and he had this brown jeep with a soft top. Soft top, heck the whole thing was soft. Tiny, flimsy wire doors that barely stayed shut. He loved that thing. Took it everywhere. Even in the winter time. I can remember that's when I learned to tie my hair in a bun without a ponytail holder. He'd take us to Big Sandy for ice cream. My hair was down to my knees at that point and would wrap itself around my ice cream cone like a silken burrito!

We were driving down the road once to the swimming pool and he had taken the doors off. It was easy, they just slid out of the hinges. He always had the top of his boot sticking out the door so I wanted to be just like him. He warned me I was going to get hit by a big bee and it would sting me. Sure enough, some be the size of a humming bird smacked into my bare foot. Yow!
He laughed.

We had like 20 cats at the time. He would tell us we were having cat-burgers. How many did we want for dinner that night. His favorite phrase...and he'd drag it out....."Well juuuuust imaaaagine thaaat." His second favorite phrase..."Hold one hand out and sit it in the other. Grunt real hard and see which gets filled first." (I didn't say it was a good phrase....)

He warned me on my first marriage that I was too young and it was too soon. (nailed that one on the head) And even though he didn't like children/babies, I have a picture of him holding my oldest.

The last time I was him (shortly before he passed) he had invited the kids and I out to dinner. He even came all the way up here. That was the first time he saw my son. There was something different about him that night.

It's just that I want to talk to him about things. Life. Kids. And I will never have that chance ever again.

Life is good. Sometimes life just isn't fair.

I cried when I got the news he was gone. The sudden shock of news was harsh. I hadn't cried since till the recently. I knew it was coming. I could feel it. Sometimes I think my eyes will drown right out of my head with the amount of tears. My heart breaks.

Something is missing. I am absent of something that is mine. I feel robbed. I feel violated at some level. I'm not angry. I just ........I miss my dad.

I miss my Dad.