One day a year

I allow myself to think about him for a long period of time.  One day a year I allow myself to mourn what I've lost.

Today is that day.  It just hit me that next year will be 20 years since he left this earth.  I've been without my daddy for more than half of my life.  Somehow this realization made things a little harder today.  It made my chest squeeze just a little harder in missing him.

I allow myself today, to wallow so that I don't let it overwhelm me the rest of the year.  It's my way of coping I guess.  I wish I could go take flowers to place on his grave, it's been so long since I did.

My daddy was not perfect, no one is, he just had some bigger faults than others.  But he still loved me.  He spent time with me, he was my life line on this earth.  I think I heard my heart shatter when he died. It's weird to me, how many memories in my life from that age have faded, but not the one where I found out he was dead.  I can replay, in almost perfect detail what happened that day, down to what my Mom was wearing when she came into the room to tell me.  I know what was said, I have no clue what I was wearing.  I know what day it was, and some of the events of school, and what happened after school.

She never told me.  I knew.  I knew when it happened and I ignored it. My daddy was invincible.  Aren't all daddy's invincible?

So I'm going to go have my good cry over this day, and tonight, I'll let the pain go again, until next year.