Happy Birthday Daddy!

Always smiling & laughing…my daddy!

It’s 5:30am on June 10th and I haven’t gone to sleep yet. Today would have been my dad’s 74th birthday…WOULD HAVE! This July 25th will mark 3 years since he’s been gone and 3 years since my heart was ripped right out of my chest and smashed it into a million little pieces. Maybe a little dramatic but it’s the truth and anyone who has lost someone near and dear to them will tell you the same thing.

I have been avoiding this day since his birthday last year and I’m pretty sure it will be the same thing next year and every year after that! It’s a reminder that he’s no longer here with us to celebrate another year of life and it fuckin sucks, it blows and it’s the biggest piece of shit! I legit hate this day! It used to be a day where the whole family would get together to go to my parent’s house for a big dinner and share tons of laughs. Now it’s spent with birthday visits to the cemetery.

Last year I spent the morning of his birthday in the parking lot of the cemetery balling my fuckin eyes out only to go in to hang out by his final resting spot and hang off the fuckin memorial plaque and continue to ball there until my tears covered it. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be too far off of that again this year.

See, the thing is, that losing a parent is hard but when you’re super close to that parent, your whole world comes crashing down. My dad was the first man I loved, he was strong and protective of his girls, he was a big teddy bear, caring, loving and funny and a joker…the biggest kid you would ever meet. He lived for his family especially his grandchildren (he met them all except for Marcus who arrived 3 months after he died). It’s hard when you’re so close to someone and then lose them. I would talk to my dad every day and at the end of every call it would end with “bye Papa, I love you”. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him and miss him. People say that with time things get better but it’s not true because I think I miss him more today than the day I lost him. The pain will never fade, forget about going away. You do learn to somewhat live without them but even living is not the same. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I go to reach the phone to share a funny story with him or just to talk about the weather and then it hits me that he’s no longer here and who the fuck am I going to call? Or the times I’ll be out shopping and see something perfect for him and you go to reach for it and again it hits you like a ton of bricks. I’m constantly going through pictures I have of him, I have them all memorized now and still each time I look through them I hope to find a new one but it never happens because he’s not here for us to take pictures of him anymore. It just sucks! All of it fuckin sucks!

You know, so much has changed since my dad has been gone but one thing remains and that’s the fact that I still miss him like crazy.

Today for your birthday I’m playing you this song…

Buon Compleanno Papa, mi manchi tanto! I love you xoxo