Three Months

Dear Dad,

It’s three months today. Can you believe that? I know I can’t.

It’s strange really. I think that a part of me still believes I’m going to wake up one morning and it will have been a dream. It doesn’t seem real.

The truth is, I forget sometimes. It’s not that I don’t miss you, but for nearly three years now I’ve lived on the other side of the world. You weren’t a part of my day-to-day life. I didn’t see you every day, or speak to you all the time. So it’s easy to forget. It’s easy to think that you are just ‘over there’ doing your thing and one day soon I’ll pick up the phone and speak to you and fill you in on my life.

And in a way it’s great, because I don’t have to be sad all the time. I don’t have to miss you constantly. I can pretend – just for a little while – that nothing has changed.

Then it will hit me all of a sudden. I’ll remember that you’re not just a phone call away anymore. I’ll remember that hearing your voice is something I won’t get to do anymore.

The trouble is, at that moment it’s like losing you all over again. All the pain, all the sadness come rushing back in one massive wave.

And I’m left wondering if those days of ‘pretend’ are worth the days when I remember all over again?

I know they say that grief is a process and something you just have to work through, but I’m not sure I’m ever going to get used to remembering that you’re not around anymore. It feels like I’m never going to be able to think about losing you without the tears, and the ache that makes it hard to breathe.

Yet on the other hand, perversely, remembering you makes me happy too. And it’s the silly things. Like doing trivia night at the local bar and suddenly thinking about you being Quiz Master in Abu Dhabi. ‘Rule #1 – the quiz master is always right. Rule #2  - in the event the quiz master is wrong, refer to rule #1’. Or eating Easter Eggs and remembering how you could always manage to make yours last for weeks longer than the rest of us, and when ours ran out you would be quietly smug about it.

So I’m trying not to forget you. I’m trying not to simply block you from my mind just to make it easier. I try and talk about you as much as I can. In fact, I think I’m turning into you – I talk way too much! But three months feels like forever and yet no time at all.

You may no longer be just a phone call away, but you will always, always be just a thought away.

With love, always.