Time. It’s a crazy thing. It’s something so valuable that we often wish away. The “I can’t wait for THIS to happen” or “I can’t wait for the weekend.” And before we know it, a week has passed. A month. A year. We find time escaping us. Growing older. Being stopped in our tracks at how fast the years have flown. I think we so often forget how valuable that time is. How once those hours, days, months, years pass… well we can’t get them back. They’re gone forever. While the idea of time progressing is something exciting, looking to the future and what it holds, it’s something that often saddens me.

When you lose a loved one, each day that passes is one day further from the day you last saw them. It’s one more day apart. One more day for our memories to fade. They say that after losing someone, it gets easier. And for anyone that’s lost someone very close to them, you know that to not be the truth. It’s not that it’s easier, not at all. It’s more that we find our own ways to push the sadness aside each day. To try to see the bright side. But when we really stop in life and stop ignoring what happened and actually live in the moment? Well the emotions are just as strong as the day our loved one passed.

Today as I sit in tears thinking of my dad, my emotions are amplified. Being in the moment. Thinking of the hurt. Allowing myself to actually feel. To not push the feelings aside and ignore them. And what magnifies the pain and the tears is time. Today is the anniversary of my dad passing away. Every year when June 29th rolls along, it hurts. Bad. But this year hurts more than usual. It’s a day I knew would come. And I know will come again. The day that comes when you’ve officially been without your dad the same amount of years that you were with him on this earth. And so we go back to time. Because now, with each day that passes is a hard reminder that I’ve now lived more of my life without my dad with me than I did with him here. Something about that brings so much more sadness. And knowing that this date, this sad milestone, will come again 4-5 more times in my life. Where I’ve realized I’ve lived for so long without my dad here with me. Reminding me of just how few precious of years I actually got with him. And how many more years I have to live without him.

I think most years I try to find the happiness. I try to see the good. I try to remember how he’d want me to remember. And feel how he’d want me to feel. But this year, it’s different. I’m overwhelmed with this feeling of sorrow. And hurt. And anger. Anger at time. That it’s passing so fast. And forcing me further away from the last time I saw my dad. The last time I felt his hug. Or saw his smile with those dimples of his. Or his blue eyes. Or heard his contagious laughter. Or fell for one of his pranks. Time, you’re a real b*tch. I refuse to let you come in between me and the man that I love so dearly. That I look up to. That I miss with all my heart. And to you dad, no matter how much time passes, I’ll always have you front and center in my heart. Always.