Father's Day

Hello lovelies,

 First of all, I want to start off with wishing all the good dads & grand-dads out there a very happy father's day! I hope you have a wonderful day.

 However, this post is less about father's day itself, and more about some realizations I've had and things I need to work through. For a while, I felt like I wasn't allowed to feel emotion about my dad's death because some people have had it worse with toxic, or abusive, fathers. But I can't deny that I've been struggling.

 Father's day for me has seemingly gotten easier each year after my dad passed away, but for some reason, today... it's struck me hard. Not in a teary-sad-crying kind of way, but it's like all of a sudden it's settled into the pit of my stomach that he's gone.
 It's such a weird feeling.

 Like, one of the ways I coped (and still have to this day, I guess) after his death was to pretend that he was on a trip, and he'd be back soon. We'd open the door and there he'd be, in a Hawaiian shirt with his ridiculous grin plastered across his face, saying how he was so glad to be home.
 But that's not going to happen.

 We live in a new house now. It's a nice house, I suppose, but it's never felt like home to me... I can't quite pin-point why, but lately I've been thinking about how my dad is never going to set foot in this house.
 He'll never see my paintings that I've worked so hard on hanging on my bedroom wall. He'll never again yell at my brother to clean up his 'pig sty of a room'. He'll never complain about my sister's odd collections again.

 We don't even have any pictures of him hanging up anywhere... and we have a LOT of stuff hanging up. Which isn't bad, because there's not this constant, hanging reminder of who's not here anymore, but sometimes I kind of forget what his face looks like. And his voice is all but gone from my mind.
 Which is understandable, we're going on 4 years, but... still.

 It's such a weird thing, too, because there's lots of pictures of him at my grandmother's house. I think she's very much so still in the beginning stages of grieving despite how much time has passed. It has to do with some beliefs she holds as well.
 Anyways, the pictures are weird because even though they're him... they don't feel like him. Some are so old they're from before I was born, or when I was really little, or maybe from when he was really little. There's some more recent ones, but a lot of them are blurry or very posed.

 I just get emotional because it's knowing how much he's missed or will miss. If any of my siblings & I get married, he won't be there. He never met one of my best friends, or many of my other friends either. He didn't get to see the first dance my sister & I choreographed.

 He didn't, and won't, see any of us turn 13, 16, 18, or 21... or any of the birthdays after or in-between. He didn't get to see me on my prom night, or know about my first job interview.
 He didn't get to see Christian learn how to mow the lawn and pick up his first Summer job, or get his orange belt in karate. He doesn't get to see how obsessed Bethanne is with cosplay, and wigs, and all of that, or know that she's picked up the drums, his favorite instrument.

 I need to go now; I guess I lied about it not being a weepy-sad kind of day. I try to be a positive person, but sometimes... sometimes it's really hard. And there's literally nothing that can be done about it. You just have to push through and fake it 'til you make it.
 But right now, I'm kind of tired of faking it. I really, really miss my dad.
 Like, a lot.

Ciao...
Hannah