To the little girl I was

I don’t know how to explain what it feels like to lose your dad. People say you lose a parent, but that’s not what it feels like. It feels like you lose a piece of yourself. Like part of your heart was buried with them.
I don’t think people realize that grief isn’t just missing someone. It’s mourning every future moment that was stolen from you.
You were supposed to walk me down the aisle one day. You were supposed to stand there with tears in your eyes, telling me how beautiful I looked before giving me away. How am I supposed to plan a wedding knowing there will always be one empty seat that should have been yours?
You were supposed to be there for your grandbabies’ first days of kindergarten. More birthdays. More Christmas mornings. Zoo trips. Cookouts. Holidays. Random phone calls. Belly laughs. More memories.
Instead, I have memories that stopped being made.
I’ve accomplished things these last couple months, and my first instinct is still to grab my phone and tell you. Then reality hits all over again.
I can’t.
Father’s Day came, and I wanted so badly to make a post for you. I stared at a blank screen because no words felt big enough. The only thing my heart could say was, “Why aren’t you here?” I cried all day.
Your birthday is coming up, and somehow the world expects me to celebrate a day that reminds me you’ll never have another one. You should be getting older. Instead, you’ll always be 59.
I can’t hear AC/DC without breaking down. A song comes on, and suddenly I’m right back in that place where none of this feels real.
The hardest part is that life doesn’t stop.
Bills still have to be paid. Laundry still has to be done. My girls still need their mom. The world keeps moving while mine feels like it shattered.
So I smile.
I keep going.
Because my babies are watching me, and I know exactly what you’d tell me.
“Be strong.”
You taught me that. Stand tall, even when you’re hurting. Be brave, even when you’re scared.
So that’s what I’m trying to do.
But some days it’s almost impossible.
Especially when my daughter cries in my arms because she misses her Papa. She asks to see you, and she doesn’t understand why I can’t take her. She doesn’t understand that this goodbye is permanent.
And somehow, I have to explain something that I still don’t understand myself.
What hurts almost as much as losing you is feeling like the world kept spinning without you.
It’s only been two months.
Two months.
Yet everyone has gone back to their lives. Nobody asks if I’m okay. Nobody checks in. Sometimes I wonder if anyone remembers you’re gone at all.
Maybe they think I’m okay because I wear the brave face so well.
The one you taught me to wear.
But underneath it, I’m still the little girl who just wants her dad.
I want to tell you about my days.
I want to hear your voice.
I want one more hug.
One more conversation.
One more laugh.
I don’t think people understand that I wasn’t just robbed of my dad.
I was robbed of every version of my future that still had you in it.
And in so many ways…
I became an orphan the day you left.
I miss you more than words will ever be able to hold.
I always will.

WHAT I UNDERSTAND NOW

I remember you in pieces
not broken ones, just… unfinished.

A laugh in the kitchen
before something pulled you away.
Your hands brushing my hair
like you were trying to memorize me
before you disappeared again.

Back then, I didn’t understand
why love didn’t make you stay.
I thought if I was quieter,
better, easier
you might choose us
over whatever kept calling you back.

I didn’t know
you were already fighting something
that had its teeth in you
long before I was born.

I was just a child
waiting at the window,
learning how to miss someone
who was still alive.

Now I am older
I have children of my own,
and I see how heavy love can be
even on the good days.

How it asks everything from you.
How sometimes survival alone
feels like an accomplishment.

And I think of you
trying to carry five lives
in hands that were already shaking.

Trying to be soft
with a past that never was.

Trying to be whole
when no one ever showed you how.

And it breaks my heart differently now.

Because I see it
you didn’t love us any less.

You just didn’t know
how to love yourself enough
to stay.

I think about the girl you were
before all of it
before the pain,
before the running,
before the need to quiet everything inside you.

I wish she had been held longer.
I wish someone had taught her
that she was worth saving.

Maybe then
you wouldn’t have needed saving at all.

I still have questions
that will never have answers.
Still have days where the child in me
aches for a version of you
that never left.

But I also carry a quieter truth

that you tried
in the only ways you knew how.

That every time you came back,
even for a moment,
it was real.

And I hold onto that.

I hold onto you
not as the absence,
but as the warmth you fought to give
when you could.

I hope wherever you are
you are not hurting anymore.

I hope the noise is gone.
I hope you are finally resting
in a version of yourself
that feels like peace.

And if there is a place
where you can see me

I want you to know
I understand now.

Not everything.
Not enough to make it okay.

But enough
to love you
without wondering why
You couldn’t stay.