Happy Birthday, Dad!  You would have been 74 today and you would have said,”Isn’t life just GREAT?  I feel younger every year!  Isn’t that great, care?!?!”  I would have laughed and made some comment about how much I love you and how you were going to outlive us all.  I love you, dad. And I’m sorry you didn’t outlive us all.  You deserved to.  Yesterday I was running errands and I picked up my phone to call you.  That’s what I do when I run errands.  I call you.  It’s so strange now.  Everything is strange.  I don’t have an understanding of the world. I miss you. I miss hearing about your bike rides and about how many reps you did at the gym and about who you met that day and about how friendly everyone is in Peachtree City and about how every day is the most beautiful day EVER.  And I miss you stating the facts with no commentary.  Like “wow, there’s a lot of traffic.”  And it would stop there.  You wouldn’t complain about it.  You would just get it off your chest and sit there being all positive.  Thanks for doing that.  I’m really good in traffic because of you.  I’m still working on Danny though…..

I went for a bike ride in your honor today!  My first time ever on a road bike.  Thanks for passing that sweet ass bike onto me (did you noticed how I swore???  I thought that might make you smile).  It’s fast!  I’m now on the hunt for some folks that’ll teach me to ride that thing.

On my bike ride I was thinking about how beautiful it was to take care of you during your final few weeks.  You never complained.  Not one time.  And you ALWAYS thanked me. Even when I sat on the floor crying not knowing what to do to help you.  You said,”I don’t know what I’m doing either.  We’ll work through this together.”   I realized, from this experience, what the definition of GRACE actually is.  Thank you for showing that to me.

Danny took some photos of our final two days together and I’m going to share them with the world if you don’t mind.  I actually know you don’t mind, because I asked you before you died.  They’re difficult for me to look at, but so healing….I’m thankful to have them….

Oh, and your ashes were delivered today.  You knew something big was going to happen on your birthday…..you kept talking about that throughout this process…..now we know what it was all about.

I miss you.  Happy Birthday.  Their are actually still no words…..this is just a bunch of gibberish, it feels like.  But I’m trying, dad.  It’s hard to talk to you sometimes.  I really want to hear your voice…..