Spirit in the Sky

May 4, 1937 – September 21, 1992

Dear Dad,
This is a date I want to forget and yet every year I am painfully aware of it. It doesn’t slip by unnoticed or uncared for. It’s been twenty years. Funny, how I can remember it like a yesterday evening somewhere in time. Your heartbeat slipped away like a fading sunset, slowing to nothing and gone. We tried to hold on to your life as we knew it, not as it would be had you lived. We didn’t want to move forward without you. We didn’t think we could.
But, we did. It’s been twenty years. Only, I have to ask, Are you still with us in some weird way? I believe you are. Do you see us, left behind in the land of the living? I believe you can. Have you kept up with the lives of your family? I want to think you have. We are busy. We are fine. We all have our ups and downs. My favorite expression has become, “we are on the mend.” You must see your wife grows stronger everyday and her love for you never waivers. Your youngest daughter is a fighter of epic proportions. She is a good mother to her growing boys. And me. I’m still reading trashy novels just to spite you. I miss my cousin. Tell him hello. I look in the mirror everyday and find your nose, your chin and think to myself you are still with me. A spirit in the sky. An angel on my shoulder. A father in my heart.

Love,

A girl on the sheltered side