I miss you

I need more time but time can’t be borrowed.

On May 1, one of my worst fears came true. It felt like an icicle damn came shattering from a roof and impaled me right in the core of my heart. I punched the wall over and over and kicked the door, then I laid down and sobbed. I couldn’t move. I wanted to wake up the next morning and realize it was only a nightmare, but I never fell asleep that night. I lay there and drowned as the invisible pain held me captive. I never thought you’d leave so soon.

I miss you, Dad.

I wonder where you’re at right now; then I realize you’re all around me. I can feel your presence in each sense. In the silence, I can hear you. I hear your quiet wisdom reassuring me. I still smell the ripped black Carhartt crewneck you wore the last time you hugged me. I never thought I’d miss the smell of dust, sweat, and cow shit, but I’d give anything for your warm body to wrap around me one last time. I feel your touch through Marlow Girl. The number of times you told me that the best feeling in the world is when a little one wraps both arms around your neck and hugs you. I squeeze the breath out of Marlow and hold on extra long when she does this now because I sense you through my daughter. In the night sky, I can see you. Memories start seeping out of a hidden drawer I didn’t even know existed. Your smile is my favorite memory. Even though I can’t be near you, I still feel you holding on. Even though you left, it doesn’t feel like you’re gone.

I never thought you’d disappear. I was wrong. I promise, Dad, to make you proud even if you can’t be here with me. Since you left us, I’ve been back home twice to see Miles. The silence of the drive was almost unbearable, but the hug I was met with was worth every mile. You constantly told me, “He’s your only sibling, so you better love him.” I promise never to part ways with Miles again without hugging him and telling him I love him. I will call him and check up on him. We will continue camping every summer and snow skiing every winter. I promise my kids will see their Papa through the man you raised in your Son.
I promise to dabble in photography and video making. I’d been running ideas by you for the last couple of months about how to start a little side hustle during the summers. I had so many ideas, but you kept coming back to videography. You sent me three TikTok videos and countless texts about it. You told me I have absolutely nothing to lose. I promise you, I’ll give it a try, Dad.
I promise to slow down. You have called Marlow Girl a Nervous Nelly since the day she was born. All you wanted was for her to sit on your lap and cuddle, but you accepted that she’s our little-spirited mover. In the rare instances when she crawls on my lap to snuggle, I won’t move. I’ll hold her tight and think of you and how you used to cherish every moment she sat unmoving in your arms.

Returning to Kalispell after my last trip home and driving back into ‘normal’ life felt anything but. It almost feels wrong that everything is exactly the same, yet something is now hugely different. Sometimes, being back in normalcy makes it feel like you’re not really gone—as if I’ll get a call from you any minute. The call never comes.
I question God sometimes, and I still do some nights when I’m trying to make it make sense, staring up at the ceiling and having conversations. I know you crossed a bridge that I can’t follow. The love that you left is all that I get. I miss you more than life.