This morning, I said your voice was a memory. By this afternoon, it was loudly resonating across my house, it was like you were in the next room.
It’s been a day, Dadadad. But I did the things you said, dove in where I had to, jumped away when I could, and…I may be battle bruised and scarred for life, but at least I’ll have a story to tell.
Dadadadad, the last year…oh god you would’ve laughed. I have wished so many times for your quiet catch of me to appear out of nowhere, but I didn’t realise it was already there. The things you taught me, the things you created within me, those things created the net that caught me.
My life now is a reflection of you, in ways that would make you laugh and shiver, change the subject, stomp your foot, and then laugh again.
Everything has changed. Again. You would’ve predicted it, and probably did.
Actually, as memory serves me, mom said it. She said: “he’s always watching for a weakness.”
And while I should’ve known then, you know how us foolhardy, flippant, and ferocious we can be.
But, hindsight is 20/20 and boy did you have it in bundles.
And now, now I *know* you’d be proud. You’d know it was the right thing, laugh with me over all the wrong things, and…and you’d summarise the whole shitshow in a way nobody else could. You’d connect all the dots like I have been trying to, and then you’d make them into a neat parcel I could tie up and leave on someone else’s doorstep, because it was not mine to begin with.
Come over for tea, sometime. The kettle’s boiled.
Miss you forever.