Daddy I miss you

I’ve never written much about my dad on the blog, except for this one tribute that I did for him a while back. Partly because it’s too personal and too painful. Also because talking about it just makes it seem so real again. 5 years on and I still fall apart when I talk about my dad for more than 2 minutes so the husband knows that all conversations relating to my dad should finish within a minute or so, or he brings out the tissues.

Like from time to time, I’ll say “I miss my dad. He would have loved the kids to bits.” and he’ll say “I know. I miss him too.” Then silence. And right about the 1-minute and 58-second mark, while I still have some semblance of composure, I’ll say something like “We should watch X-men tonight…the reviews are stunning.”

This Father’s Day, I thought about him a lot. Mostly about how nice it would be to be able to give him a call to say Happy Father’s Day. And make him another of my limited edition but truly appalling personalized cards he used to love to much.

I miss how he used to be my biggest fan. He would laugh heartily at all my jokes even when no one else got them. He thought I was brilliant and got more indignant than I did when I didn’t make it into law school (even though Comm Studies turned out to be a much better fit). He told me I was beautiful when I was 15, had bad hair and an even worse fashion sense. He would give me a kiss, pray for me and say “daddy loves you” every morning before he left for work. When I was 16 and had my heart broken for the first time, he took me out for lunch and said “life is like taking buses. When one bus leaves, a better one always comes along.” It was cryptic and awkward because I thought I kept the boyfriend pretty secret but secretly, I was glad he knew and he was there for me.

He always said I was special and he was proud that I was his girl.

When I was 22, he got diagnosed with colon cancer. With 2 surgeries and several rounds of aggressive chemotherapy, he did get better for a while but 2 relapses seemed too much for him and when I was 24, he passed away on the year he was supposed to turn 50.

People would say comforting things like how he’s in a better place, and at least we had time to prepare for it and say goodbye. But honestly, none of it made me miss him less or make the pain go away. It seemed terribly unfair that he didn’t get to walk me down the aisle. Or be there to hold the grandkids who would have stolen his heart and wrapped it around their little fingers. Or be around to have dinner and ask me about my day.

Well-meaning folks told me that I should be thankful I had an awesome dad for 24 years, and the amount of awesomeness packed into those 24 years should be enough to last a lifetime. Maybe they’re right and people shouldn’t deserve to have that much daddy awesomeness. Or it’s baloney and maybe life is sometimes just plain unfair for taking away the things that make you happy. And I’d have to remind myself that even when bad things happen, God has a plan and everything is going to be ok.

It’s funny how even though I’m now a mom, I still miss being a daddy’s girl. I think that’s something that will never go away.