I’ve been reading The Clause in Christmas by Rachael Bloome. It’s been really good, by the way! Definitely one of my favorites (and going on my Christmas reading post for the Christmas season 🙂 ).

In the last half of the book, a quote jumps out to me that inspires this post.

“There are still times I forget he’s gone. I’ll turn to tell him something and then reality comes rushing back. Other times, his absence is so strong, my heart hurts almost as much as the day we lost him.”

How I relate to this…

Some days, it’s easier to say “Dad is…” and some days , it’s easy to say “Dad was…” For me, I like to think that he still is. He’ll always be with me in my heart, even if he’s no longer on earth. Saying he was makes it more real, but also, more final; that perhaps I may never see him – although I know I will again one day.

Some days I want to just message or send him something. I’ll want to send him a golf video or send him some funny hockey meme I made, because I know he’d laugh!

Then, there are other days the deep need to just talk to Dad one more time hits me. It’s happened so many times over the past year and some change that it just feels like all the time I did have I took for granted. At those times, I have to wrestle with it for a while and just be alone. It’s a feeling of regret and I don’t want to live in that way – it’s unhealthy – although I continue to cycle through it every so often.

I receive grief notes and information from the hospital almost every month or so about what stage I may be finding myself in. One of the last ones I received was about entering the second year without our loved one. They said that the second year can be just as hard as the first – sometimes in the same ways or moments, others in different ways.

No matter what year I find myself in without Dad, I think I’ll always be in a cycle of wishing for more time and being glad he’s in a better place already (especially this past year…).

Thank you for reading. ❤️