It’s always at nighttime when I feel closest to you. When the world is a little more still, it feels like there is more space for you and I.

Yet, you are with me everywhere I go. And I hope you know, that as time goes on, I am becoming more like you. In the months since you died, I notice our similarities more. Thinking about all the ways we are the same, even though things between us always felt so distant. The gap you left in our lives has found a home within me. It’s both comforting and painful but I’m slowly finding ways to fill it with love and life again.
It often felt like a part of me died when you did. Now, it seems much of the pain comes from knowing that you continue to live on in me. The jarring feeling of recognising that while not being able to see you – the physical absence – can be so lonely. It is lonely.
I’m going to carry you forever though, Dad. To remember that you lived and you were loved. That you loved me. Perhaps now, I have extra love to put out into the world.

Sometimes I carry you with pain or with joy and sometimes filled with gratitude. And sometimes, everything all at once. I guess that’s grief. A love that lives on in more ways that we could ever imagine.