It’s been a month since I last saw him yet part of me still thinks he’s just gone way and he’s going to walk through the door any day now.
My dad had a list of illnesses that made living hard for him. The idea that they’d eventually kill him wasn’t a shock but we just never thought it’d happen so soon and so fast.
One hour he was waving goodbye as I went out for the evening. The next I entered my home filled with paramedics with my mum telling me he’d died.
The first night without him, after his body had been taken, we spent it cleaning up the blood that was left. But not even that was enough to shock me into fully accepting he was gone.
The next few weeks were tiring and blurry. They were full of strangers paying their respects and asking how I am. That's not a question I even knew how to begin answering.
I found myself thinking over the times we’d had together but also the times we’ll never get to have. The missing person at my graduation, the grandfather my kids will never know, the empty place as I walk down the aisle and the father-daughter dance I’ll never have.
More simply though, I’d just like to be able to be in his presence again. Watch TV together or walk the dogs. Get weird advice that I’ll probably never need.
The funeral is over now and everything seems quieter. I think of the family with the broken connection that I’ll never see again.
The visits lessen until it’s just us again. The family with a piece missing trying to figure out what the new normal is.
My heart breaks just that bit more when I see my dog looking to the door waiting but each day a little less hopeful. Despite that, she continues to search the house with her sad eyes.
I hope she knows that he didn’t want to leave her, leave us. That he didn’t abandon her but he had to go, it was his time. He’s in a better place now, you can see him again one day.
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