Yesterday was his birthday.
Sixty five years have passed since the day he came into this world and nearly two years since he left it.
It all goes by so quickly.
It's almost as if all of those memories I described in my last entry happened only yesterday...
I tried to pass over his birthday with as little observation as possible because I just knew that if I made a big deal about it we'd all end up depressed, and birthdays...no matter whose they are...are supposed to be happy days. My children and I paused to say Happy Birthday to him and light a candle. Then we went on with our lives. I'd like to think that's how he would have wanted it.
So, we went about our normal routines...as if the day was no different from any other. We shopped, we ate, we drank, we bathed, we went to bed. My daughter, who was always close to my dad, was feeling down so I let her snuggle me last night. I fell asleep with her small hand in mine and her head on my chest...such a warm feeling...and one that, as I drifted off, I recalled sharing with my father...once upon a time.
I remembered the rough feel of his fingers in mine. The way he rubbed his thumb across my temple as he brushed the hair from my eyes. The smell of his aftershave as I buried my little face in his shirt. The sound of his voice as he sang softly to lull me.
And, with these sensations crashing over me in a wave of memory, I floated off to sleep...
And I dreamed of him.
In my dreams, he was alive...he was smiling...but I could still remember that day standing over his bed watching as he took his last breath. In that dream place, my daughter ran into his arms and held him so tightly I thought she'd never let him go...and I didn't know what to do. I tried to tell him...to say that he was gone...that he couldn't be here...and all he did was smile again and fold me into his arms.
I woke up crying, having told him over and over that I was sorry and that I loved him. That I missed him so much it was nearly unbearable. That I would give anything to have one more day with him, sitting on the edge of the creek as he taught me the proper way to skip a rock or how to hold a catfish to keep it from stinging.
So many of the things we did together were boyish. Looking back, I think that he probably always wanted a son and just didn't know how to deal with a daughter. Maybe that's where the rift between us began.
I don't know how to feel about my dream. I know that, because of what day it was, he was on my mind. And logic dictates that those thoughts carried over into my subconscious...and that's where the dream came from.
But I still can't help feeling as if he was trying to tell me something. I wish I could figure out what it was.
I just know that I regret so many things. I regret all of the fighting and grudges and weeks of not talking. I regret the fact that it took a terminal illness to make me realize how much I love my father...and how very much I had missed.
Now I see that there were so many wasted years.
I want those years back so bad...
