There's so much to be said about a frosted, pink pool float.

Gliding over clean water,

Inflated by a grieving daughter...

Today I bought a ladder for my pool and I put it together without the instructions. I spent fifteen minutes on one phone call to understand how to make the air compressor work. It meant so much to me that I inflated my pool float all by myself. It was the first time in my life I had to do it for myself, not only by struggling to inflate it with my own breath stubbornly (when before my father would take pity over for me), but by doing it correctly myself.

As I floated in the pool and absorbed the rays of the sun, I sighed softly. My eyes opened despite the bright light glaring in. I saw the beauty of the vibrant green around me. The trees and grass swayed under the heat of the early summer sun. This must be heaven, I thought. I imagined my father working in the garden with no pain or stress to burden him. Paradise: to be outside and free.

A single tear rolled from the corned of my eye as I felt the pain of his absence. I felt the familiar loneliness which seeped into me before he had taken his last breath. I thought back to days when he'd inflate my pool float until it was comically engorged - sometimes popping... the days of him checking the tire pressure on my bike... making sure that my muffler didn't fall off my first truck..

Now, these are things I do myself. Not alone, but with his memory heavy in the air around me. Grief never leaves us. It just transforms us.