When I was in third grade, my dad passed out at work. He was taken to the emergency room and didn't leave the hospital for 30 days after that. He was notified that he had three types of cancer and a 30 percent chance to live. Fast forward to 2014 and tons of hospital visits, trying a plethora of different drugs, one million prayers, comfort food baskets, being separated from family and having a completely different childhood and teen years than anyone else I know. On Dec. 16, 2014, he passed away peacefully of a complication due to pneumonia in his shared nursing home room.

I'm really not sure if there is anything else anyone can go through and have it be so equally traumatizing; a piece of you dies with them. He is the jest man you meet and the first role model of how you want your life to resemble, you want to meet a man who's just as strong and can be there for your kids just like he was for you. They teach you how to ride a bike, stay up til 10 p.m. on a weeknight in a single light in your dining room teaching you math, teach you how to fish and why being outside and helping others is so important.

But before you could teach me how to drive a car, walk me down the isle and even meet my future children, you were taken from this earth way to early. I barely saw you during some pretty formative years of my life. Mom did a phenomenal job of raising me and Alysa and I'd like to think you are proud of who we are. Sure, we may have strayed away of who we are deep in our core, but we've always retired to have the same morals you have taught us, which I think is the most important thing you have showed me.

When you talked to strangers in the supermarket and became a close friend to many of our neighbors through the years, I looked up to how friendly and how easy it was for you.

I will never understand why God took you away and gave us one hell of a ride, but I wish every day I had a normal life — where we could go to Panera Bread after work and I could complain about my coworkers, or we could go on hikes together and you could help me pick out a present for mom. I wish you were here to give me advice on life when I'm feeling lost and confused as to what I really want to be.

I think about you all the time and hope you are proud of all me, Alysa and mom accomplished since you've passed. I hope we continue to make you proud, but until we meet again, I love you.