“Don’t rush growing up” my grandma used to tell me, “life will pass you by in the blink of an eye”. My younger self would roll my eyes behind her back because it sounded so unreal that life would go by so fast. But it does, especially when you count the years a loved one hasn’t been around.
That is exactly was has happened. Suddenly 12 years have gone by without you dad and it still feels like it was yesterday when I received the dreaded call that delivered the news. It’s funny because it also feels like it was a very long time ago. I think we can call it resilience. We, as a family, have developed an ongoing ability to recover from losing you. Please don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean that his memory is forgotten and we’ve moved on, no, it means that your loss made us stronger as individuals and as a family of four. As one of my brothers said “it has made us bloom”.
In these twelve years we’ve learned what are the things that are really important, it has made us grow up in ways we didn’t even think was possible, it has made us closer, more caring between us, it made us value all the sacrifices you made to give us the life you did and made us grateful for all the invaluable lessons you taught us throughout the time dad was with us.
So in the midst of the tears we still shed every now and then, the pain of his absence and all the beautiful stories we still hear from lifelong patients, we can smile, be grateful and celebrate his life and the legacy that he left us with.
Every January 10th our heart reminds us of dad not being around and even though we try our hardest to go through the day with the same joy and energy we had the day before, we need to slow down to acknowledge that our love for you is still so strong that we can’t ignore the fact that we miss you every single day. And we always will.
Love you dad, always and forever.
