Love, your special one

I have started a blog post several times over the last few days. Trying to find the words to describe how I am feeling lately, how hard it is to raise 2 children while working and taking care of a home and how to deal with this lingering grief and upcoming anniversary of my dad's death.

It is amazing how life goes on. How our lives just keep going.

I have written before about winter being all about death. It is simply the truth in my life. 3 deaths over a 4 week period. Two of them are easier to remember and bring a sense of peace and joy in my life. But my dad. My dad.

When I was a kid, my dad called me his "special  one". Of course my siblings said it was because I was "special" but my dad just had a special place in his heart for me. I was a sensitive kid. Took everything personally and would often break out in a tantrum at the drop of a hat. My dad saw me. He understood what was going on with me. He knew that I just needed him and just needed to be heard.

Last summer our family went to Florida on vacation with my husband's family. We were all in a house for a week and it was an amazing week. A week filled with adventures of checking crab traps, riding on jet ski's, swimming in the ocean and seeing the Blue Angels fly. It was a trip that Henry still talks about.

That trip was the first time I realized how much alike Henry and I are. Henry is a sensitive kid. He has always been. He gets his feelings hurt easily and when he hurts someone else he feels this intense regret and remorse. He feels things and I see that. One of the nights we were there, Henry got his feelings hurt. So I walked with him for awhile down to the end of the dock where his dad was fishing. As we walked, we stopped and talked for awhile. I told my Henry that he was my special one. That he was the one I see and know how he is feeling. He cried even more when I told him that. And to this day, I tell him all the time that he is my special one.

My dad taught me how to be a good parent (mom did too) but he taught me how to SEE my kids. How to acknowledge their emotions and how to make sure they know their value and worth.

As this week comes and I remember each day of the days leading up to this death, I am trying to choose to remember the things that he taught me. The things that I carry on through his legacy. The things that make me, me because of him.

It is interesting that even after death, I can still learn from him. I can see how things he did changed me and shaped me into the person I am today. I see him in each of my siblings and in my children and my nephew.

He is still around in each of us yet it doesn't make it easier.

This week is hard. It is a week I dread each year. It is a week where I burst into tears for the smallest things. Where I am on edge constantly and where I long to go back and say more and do more. Yet that is grief.

Death changes you. Grief changes you, there is no denying that. Yet in the midst of my grief and my longing for a different story, I find grace and beauty in the world around me. I find it in my son, my daughter and my beautiful family.

I know God's grace surrounds me at these times. I know that God is with me through it all and I know that my dad is simply a veil away, longing and hoping he too was with  us.

God Bless you, dad. I miss you. - Your Special One