Today is one of the days that I dread each year as I have the last 8. It never gets easier. It is full of lots of emotion, memories, gratitude, pain, and love. My emotions battle with each other.
My dreams still wish him here. To answer all my questions, to pester me, to love on his sweet grand-daughter, to let me know that I am doing okay. To tell me he loves me each and every day, to go scuba diving in Catalina, to help me through school. To help me unfold my future, to meet the man that I will one day marry. To call each night as he did with his own parents. To bring out my inner child, to start water fights. To teach me how to make his peach cobbler, for summer BBQ's. To remind me that I am an example to people that look up to me. To remind me that I will always be his sunshine. To teach me that the worth of a man is determined by what he can do for those that can do nothing in return, and that forgiveness is one of the most important lessons you can learn.
In reality, he is not here and I have to be reminded of that every day. And that hurts. On Father's day it hurts even more. But I have to celebrate because I have been blessed with an amazing man that never oversteps his role as my "other dad" He loves me like I am his own. He loves my Mama the way she deserves to be loved. He always knows just what to say to push me a little further, to see things a little clearer, and to believe in myself a little bit more. He teaches me that if I want something different I have to do something different. He is self-less, loyal, and hard-working. Everything a person could want in a father- whether biologically or not. He is nothing like my dad, except that he is an equally amazing father. I wouldn't trade him for any other "other dad" in the world.
It is a confusing, difficult, overwhelming amount of emotion.