In just a few short weeks, Father’s Day will be here. This will officially be the ninth Father’s Day without my dad and I’m frightened by how many days can pass now between thoughts of him. When he first died in October 2006, I couldn’t find a second of the day he wasn’t in my mind. Now, nine years later, I feel guilty when I realize a week has passed and I haven’t thought of him.

Is this normal? Is this wrong?

I wish I thought of him more. I miss the dreams I used to have of him. I miss the happy memories that were on the surface before, but now linger in the cob-webbed recesses of my mind, waiting for a trigger to bring them back to the forefront.

My father died when I was 22, just a few months before my wedding. I was flooded with immense guilt at his passing, as I was so self-obsessed and narcissistic at the time, I didn’t allow the gravity of his illness to impact my way of life. I partied, I complained about classes …I dropped the weight of my stresses on him when he needed me to be there, never realizing the limit on the hours he had left. I continued to live my life, unaware that his was drawing to an end.

Now, at 30, I wonder how differently I would behave if my father were still alive. Would I have grown up as quickly as I did at 22 were it not for the awareness of the frailty of life? Would I be the woman I am today?

I am not an atheist, but I find it hard to believe in a God, in a “heaven” per sey, nor do I believe that my father’s soul is in a “better” place. I believe his body has passed, and his energy has been transferred back into the universe. I am unsure what form it has taken: blades of grass? A doe? A cooing baby in someone’s arms? Who knows. My understanding of energy is that it can neither be created nor destroyed, so somehow, somewhere, that spirit that gave life to his flesh has been re-purposed on this earth.

Wherever “he” (that nebulous term to refer to the spirit of the physical man I knew) is… I hope he’s proud of me.

A love without end, daddy.

~ Victoria Elizabeth