Today.

Today marks the day that I put my forehead to my dad’s and kept saying, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” His cold, clammy forehead. If I hadn’t of touched him I’d think he was only sleeping. His curls still held tight. His hands still calloused. But his chest didn’t rise to fall.

That was two years ago. Today. It still hurts. Nobody gets this hurt. I can mask a lot of things. I use a lot of exclamation points, I smile a lot, and I rely on that smile to mask some of the pain. Today I won't pretend if I'm not feelin' it. It is what it is. I won’t tell myself to stop nor will I tell myself to suck it up.

Today:

I’m going to let myself miss my dad.
I’m going to let myself cry.
Or just let myself be what I need to be.


I read this recently and it all hit home. Donald Miller put into words what I never could.

"After a tragedy, I think God gives us a period of numbing as a kind of grace. Perhaps he knows our small minds, given so easily to false hope, couldn't handle the full brunt of reality."

"I knew then the shock was wearing off. A certain fear grew. They don't have an emergency room for the kind of pain that is about to happen to me, I thought."