Nine Years

Crazy day today. I actually took my lunch, so I had no time to do more than a few sentences in my novel. So, since I have no real progress to show anyway, I thought I'd take a break from writing about writing and actually write something today. In memoriam of my father:

It's been nine years tonight. Nine years since I held your hand and begged whatever higher power I could think of to stop the ebb of life out of your body. Nine years since I lost my best friend, constant companion, and father.

Nine years have passed, and I can tick them off on my fingers like any other number. Like how many apples I have in the fridge, or how many hours I spend at work each day. But the pain doesn't pierce me so sharply when I think about apples, or hours, like it did when I thought of you. Nine used to be the number of times I would cry in an hour in your memory. Now its another number, another place I find myself in my life after you. Another year since that awful, awful day.

My life has been separated by the divide of your passing. I define myself as the me before, and the me after. The me before had so little to worry about. She had an ideal of what her life would be, and you were always in it. The me after has come to realize that life isn't guaranteed, and that every time she says goodbye to someone, it could be the last.

I often wonder how different my life would be if you were still here. I've learned to bridge the canyon you left behind, but I wonder if I still would have needed it. If some other force would have given me a yawning maw to traverse anyway. I like to think it would have been easier with you there, beside me.

I still cry sometimes, Daddy. I still miss you when I think how you will never walk me down the aisle. You never saw me even graduate high school. You'll never get to be a grandfather to my children, or finish being a father to me. But I cherish the time we had, and I honor you every year on the anniversary of the worst day of my life.

I think you would be proud of me. I know you would love me. I hope you are finding peace from the pain you carried where you are now.

It's been nine years, and I still feel like a little girl when I think of you.