I miss you, Dad
It’s been one month since my father was taken from us. One month and it’s felt like an eternity. I wish I could hear his voice one more time. I wish I could listen to his laugh every single day. In a few short weeks we’ll welcome his first grandchild into this world - a child I thought would know and love my dad, look up to and admire him for at least 20 years. I wish he could hold me and tell me everything will be ok.
As we approach Father’s Day tomorrow I can’t help but feel a bit of resentment towards those celebrating with their dads when mine was so cruelly and violently taken from me just a month ago. I don’t know that I will ever get over the trauma of attempting to resuscitate my father’s cold lifeless body, or hearing the frantic screams of my mother from upstairs. Admitting to the paramedics that I could not feel his pulse was quite possibly the most difficult sentence I’ve ever had to utter. Moments like these change you forever and play out in your dreams again and again like a nightmare on repeat.
Preparing to bring my baby into this world while mourning the loss of my father has been far more difficult than I could have ever imagined. A thousand times over I’ve envisioned making the call to my dad, telling him that he’s a grandfather to a healthy baby boy or girl after they’ve made their entrance earth side. I wish I could see the look on his face as he holds my baby for the first time. I wish he could give them all of his wisdom and teach them his deep love for wind fairing seas. It still doesn’t feel real to me that these things will never happen, and the pain of knowing I will never see my dad again cuts like a knife. He will never hear his grandchild’s laugh or see their precious face. He will never be there to give me parenting advice or reassure me that I’m doing ok. He will never see me grow from a woman into a mother. He will never know the weight of the burden his passing brings.
As I write this I can feel my baby kicking in my belly – something that would normally bring me immense joy now just brings a mixed bag of emotions. The overwhelming sadness and shock of my dad’s passing has overshadowed what should be such a happy and exciting time in my life. It’s simply not fair. But I guess life’s not fair, and things never go as planned. The world keeps turning and life moves forward, but I feel incomplete without my dad.