Saddest Web Site Ever

I'm trying to remember how I got there from a job search, something about writing got me started on autobiography sites, a little of this, a little of that, and I find myself at imissmydad.com. Two minutes later, the Facebook link draws me in and the tears start falling. So many people grieving, so fresh the memories.

These people are writing about their dads who died three weeks ago, one year ago. How hard would it have been to write about it then? For me, I've passed the twenty-year mark. Passed the first birthday when I didn't think of him, passed the anniversary when I didn't need to talk to someone about it. I get so that I think it is so far in the past, that it doesn't affect me. I joke about not having to get Father's Day cards. And then...

Then someone talks about their father, about their loss. About how they don't keep pictures up because it is too hard to see them. And then I realize that I don't keep pictures around, that even thinking about that picture, that last one of him and mom, sends me to a crying place. My dorky-looking dad with the tri-focals who was my touchstone in a world of change.

Something like that. I could talk to him. He understood me. He was a geek like me. I felt very alone for the longest time after I lost him. When I have something to share, I think of him.

When I think I might not do something because it is inconvenient, I think of him. And then I try my best to be brave, to do it - because life really is short, and if you wait, you might not have time. And when someone tries to tell me that work is so important and being busy is good, I think of him. Of him being with us, not at work, when it came down to it. Of him being with us so many times throughout our lives, of feeling loved and special.

Do I make him sound perfect? He wasn't. He was an alcoholic who drank himself to sleep and felt awfully sorry for himself. Our home was on the stressed-out side of things, and I reacted by finding my quiet places to read and do puzzles. He was a great dad, a fun person, an easy-going dude, genuinely well-liked at work - with coping problems and an addiction he'd had since high school.

Yes, we had an intervention. No, it didn't last. Yes, we felt loved anyway.

Okay, enough of the sadness for today. I just wanted to say

I miss my dad, too.