To Dad

Happy Father's Day DaD........I am feeling your loss profoundly today, I can't even bare the thought of visiting your grave to feel close to you, I still get angry, I look how much of my life you have missed, you missed the birth of your first grandchild and all the grandchildren that followed, it was because you would not be there to walk me down the aisle that I opted to elope, that special place of honor you would have had my wedding day could not have been filled by anyone else but you, I would of felt my loss more than my joy that day, so I eloped.

I sometimes still feel stuck at the age you left me, 16.......such a traumatic time in life for a Daddy's girl to be without her Daddy. You were so flawed as a Father and as a Husband to my Mother, but we loved you anyway. I never got the chance to need you, but through the years that has passed since your death there have been many times I needed you, You would have love my choice of husbands even though you would have said he wasn't good enough, deep down you would have loved him as I do, you would have been bursting with pride and joy with each introduction to all 7 of your grandchildren. You would have found the patience you so lacked as a young Father and my Brother, Sister and Myself would have been in awe of how you loved your grandchildren.

I wish you would have fought harder Dad, I wished your love of life was stronger than your love for the bottle. I wish you didn't realize that it was a mistake to late for it to count. I know you know my loss, you lost your own Father when you were just 12, at least I had you a lil while longer. Every once in a while I smell you, that smokey, leathery, whiskey scent that lingers around me if only for a moment. I laugh at those times too, because I don't let anyone smoke in my house, but that doesn't stop you, you stubborn Irish man! I smell you in the car and my sixth sense kicks in and I buckle my seat belt, only to have something that would have sent me into the dashboard happen a mile or so down the road, I can't count all the times a street light, any street light will flicker just as I drive under it and say, "All right Dad, I'm clicking the seat belt!"

I laugh harder at the time while I was working 9 years after your death, I went to lunch with some of my coworkers and when I came back I had a message to call you, so when I went and found the person that took the original message and I asked about the phone call and was told that My Father had call (asked for me by name) and that he really needed to talk to me, so call him as soon as I returned from lunch! My first thought was Uh Oh What did I do now and how very much I would have loved to have returned that phone call! And last but not least every once in a while I still feel that swift kick to the seat of my pants just as I did when I was a child.

I am missing a lot of things today and I just wish you were here.

Love,
Kimberleigh