11 Years Later

this was the letter I wrote my father 11 years ago

Dear Daddy,

It’s been 11 years since I have had a chance to see your eyes connect with mine. In that time, so much for me has changed. So much that you would be proud of but also too many mistakes you would probably scold me for. Although I think some of my missteps may have been avoided if I had you, or rather I listened to you, but as you always told me “the older I get the smarter your grandmother is.”

I wish I had one more conversation, well I wish for endless conversations but I would settle for just one. I miss you, badly, so deeply. I miss you more than I could have ever imagined and it’s taken until just this past year to realize the depth of my trauma from losing you. Every October I can feel it in my soul; the entire month I replay that day over and over. I play the records I grew up hearing you play in the house, I want to cook the meals you made for me every night at dinner, I want to tell my children to “always do the right thing”. Those everyday moments are what I miss and cherish the most, to be honest I still have the shoebox with all of the lunchbox notes you left me. It is those moments that you taught me the most. You showed me what love was and I am forever grateful for that.