Missing You

This day didn't sneak up on me; my heart's been aching for weeks now. It's just a day, like any other day of the year, made up by man to celebrate the fathers of the world. Is it this day that's been causing my eyes to well up with tears, my heart to clench and the lump in my throat to swell for weeks now? Or is it just a renewed sense of loss that everyone feels after 4 months of losing a loved one? Does it cycle like that, three times a year? Or at the shift of each new season? Maybe it's just the first year. Maybe it's hormones. Maybe it's all of these things together.

I miss my Dad.

Today we should be gathered around the outdoor table, grilling steaks, steaming crab legs, drinking cocktails and beer while Dad indulges in a cigar while reading the newspaper or a favorite magazine with his playlist humming in the background.

This Father's Day is a day of loss for all of us here. My Mom and sister & I are sharing out first fatherless Father's Day together. I wonder if my Mom feels it more, having recently lost her father, and then the father of her children just weeks later?

 I'll get past this, and his birthday, and the holidays, and the anniversary - and then perhaps it will get easier with each passing year.

Cheers Dad! I picture you relaxing under a beach umbrella, the tops of your feet pink from the sun, a newspaper spread before you, listening to the calls of sea gulls and the crashing of waves. Happy Father's Day, I love you.