Experiencing Father's Day with no father honestly is a horrible feeling. Seeing all of the posts about the amazing moments everyone is sharing with their dads is a reminder of that piece of you that is gone forever. Whether your dad is absent, passed on, the best memory or the worst, he is an undeniable piece of you that is missing.
Losing a dad is something I don't know if I could ever 100 percent recover from; I have so many memories and reminders of him. I'm still young, so I still attribute so much of my identity to him, but I'm not angry, anymore, that my father isn't with me. I believe he left when he needed to, and I am able to understand the timing of it, even though I was young. I think about him every day in one way or another, and even though I don't talk about him much, he is always in the back of my mind. I am always aware, always hyper-aware, of the missing piece of me that separates me from most of my peers.
There are so many times that I find myself hoping that no one asks about him, whether it's a follow-up to me talking about my mom, asking about his work, or about the dreaded Father's Day. When people ask, I hesitate, because I know the answer is going to be uncomfortable for them to hear; death is horrible, and I know that people do not care for that come up in their casual conversations about family.
I wish that I had had more time with him. He missed so much of my life. He couldn't be there when I graduated high school, got my first job, decided on a major, picked a college, and he won't be there when I graduate, enter my career, get my first home; he can't walk my down the aisle or even meet my incredible future husband or cheer me on through all of my successes, and I never got the chance to take care of him, and those are the things that hurt the most - the missed experiences. I lost him too young to really appreciate the memories we made together, but now that he's gone they mean everything.
The most important thing I learned from losing him is to cherish literally every moment I share with people; it is now a truth to me that every time one of us drives away from each other, I may never see them again. It has taught me to not sweat the small stuff in relationships because at the end of the day I want to be on a positive note with everyone. Now, I make sure to say I Love You every chance I get, spend as much time as I can with my loved ones, and never take anyone for granted, because life isn't guaranteed. Death is something you don't think will happen to you, or to anyone close to you, but it really can happen any minute, and there's no way to prepare for that besides just living the best life you can and treating everyone well.
