conversations with my dead dad

21 years later

hey dad,

i know before your death, we weren’t particularly close. we butted heads a lot, i was a teenager, the oldest, and kind of an asshole ( and tbh so were you), but none of that changes the fact that i miss you.

the thing about death is, it never goes away. sure, we’ve gotten further and further from the day you died. in a way, it becomes easier, and also so much more difficult.

i didn’t know this was possible until you died and the years passed.

i miss you more the older i get.

i hate that you don’t know my friends, or who i’ve become.

i hate that i can’t remember your voice, or what you smell like, or what your laugh sounds like.

now, i can see how deeply your death has shaped my life, often in ways i don’t even realize. i know this sounds so strange, and is usually kept for the vulnerable conversations with friends and my therapist - but i swear, my relationship with you has become so much stronger in your death.

i feel you with me in small, unexpected ways. i’ve felt you touch my hair. i’ve seen your face in the kindness of a taxi drivers picking me up in different cities, i feel you in the budding flowers of spring, and the ones that fight through the winter, and the cardinal that finds me each anniversary of your death, no matter where i am in the world.

and in all of this loss, when i am alone, and the hole in my heart is feels like it’ll never ever heal, i’ll feel a warmth from deep inside, like it’s radiating from my hands and i know, intuitively, to hold them close to my chest and let that heat radiate into my heart space.

and in those moments, I know, i know i know i know you are here.