fashion clothes

Usually, I have a decent amount of things to mention in these TTPMOT posts. This week, there is an abundance....so much so that I have taken entire groups of things out to write separate stand alone posts about later on this week.

That much stuff.

Off we go.


Florida's Pro-Murder Assbackwardsness
On my mind more than any other news story this week, the sick and twisted most recent case of a murder of a child in Florida. The fact that most of the major news sites are running it is as the "loud music trial" is prejudicial and just flat wrong. There was a person killed, it was a murder trial, and the victim's name was Jordan Davis.

In the case, a drunk white man with a history of being a bigot pulls into a convenience store parking lot, gets offended that a car full of kids is playing loud "thug" music, somehow becomes afraid for his life even though none of them exits the vehicle, grabs his handgun (that he has a concealed permit for) and unloads 10 rounds into the car, 3 of them when the car was actually fleeing. Yes, he kept shooting after they tried to leave. None of them were armed.

Instead of alerting the authorities, he went back to his hotel room, poured a few more drinks, ordered pizza and took his dog for a walk. Since he has been in jail, the letters he's written to his daughters include things like, “This jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs.… This may sound a bit radical, but if more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”

What in the actual fuck????

He was tried for first degree murder of Jordan and also charged with attempted murder and shooting into a vehicle. The jury hung on the murder charge but convicted on everything else. Logically, I'm not wrapping my head around how he is guilty for shooting and not killing the other three guys in the car, but they couldn't agree he was guilty for shooting and killing the one person he actually killed. 

At least the jury hung and that charge can be retried. He faces up to 60 years as is for the convictions he already received. (That is quite literally the only positive thing I can say about the outcome.)

Florida's asinine "stand your ground" law needs repealed. Kids are dying. Paranoid people carrying weapons have been give carte blanche to commit murder. 

Whatever happened to antitrust laws?
Ahhh, America. The land of entepreneurship and capitalism in its infancy, now struggling to wade through huge multinational corporate control of more and more and more industries.

The latest one to be sullied by a patent lack of competition and total market dominance - cable. Not just cable, because cable isn't just cable anymore. They are the main providers of internet service and oh yeah by the way they are content providers too now.

This should bother you if it doesn't. I can promise you that.

Here's the thing, you guys.

We have antitrust laws for a reason. To encourage competition. To protect both consumers and the market from abuse of market share. To foster development and innovation.

Oh, but wait.

We don't need to be bothered with things like that anymore. Antitrust, schmantitrust. Chuck Schumer, Senate Democrat and member of the antitrust subcommittee supports the merger. Of course he does. Time Warner gave him more money than any other candidate the last time he ran in 2010 and his brother is in on the deal. 

We do elect them to do the bidding of huge corporations even if it hurts us and destroys competition, right???

She's baaaaaaack
The geniuses vying for the GOP spot on the presidential ticket have already pulled out all the stops in the campaign to destroy Hilary, but the most recent tactic even has Mitt Romney shaking his head. 

For serious. When Romney is all dude, you guys, that's not cool....maybe you should listen.

What could be so horribly bad that even he is defending Hilary?

Easy. Rand Paul has said that he's not above dragging out the Monica Lewinsky case to use against her in the election.

I wish I was kidding.

He's worse than a woman scorned bringing up the distant past, which oh yeah by the way, I'm fairly certain that Hilary had no part of. The affair was between Bill and Monica, not some bizarre Oval Office cigar laced three way.

AND EVEN IF IT WAS....why would that fucking matter? How many leaders of the GOP have cheated on their wives repeatedly? I don't think any of them have faced impeachment proceedings for it....

This is an old story that had nothing to do with Hilary, Rand. Get over yourself.

If you want to attack her, just talk about Benghazi 24/7. Oh wait....you already did that too.


Hi. My name is Rand Paul. I like to beat dead horses.

For the love.

Just a little racist bullying in the NFL, NBD
So, the case of Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito and the Miami Dolphins is over and done with, right? Just a little razzing by well-meaning teammates, right? This happens all the time, right? Martin was totally fine with it all, right?

This is what the NFL is all about, right?

No.

All the forced apologies and shrugged shoulders and shucks, it's not so bad interviews from a while back were bullshit.

In the past week, the actual effect the bullying has on Jonathan has come to light through messages to and from his parents that were released. The guy, clearly a sensitive soul to begin with, was being crushed by the taunts and racial epithets thrown at him, they were eating away at his self worth and making him question whether he belonged in the league at all.

He fell rapidly into depression.

The messages are heartbreaking to say the least. You can read them all here. 

This is what bullying does to people.

THIS IS WHAT BULLYING DOES TO PEOPLE.

THIS IS WHAT BULLYING DOES TO ADULTS.

Imagine being a 13 or 14 year old kid and living through what he did or an 8 or 9 year old kid, then being encouraged to act like it wasn't a big deal, like it was all fine, and smile for photo ops with the guys who were tormenting you.

There is no gay agenda
The "gay agenda" was invented by conservative Christians, not by the LGBT community. That should tell you everything you need to know about it.

It seems that the closer we get to achieving any semblance of equality in this nation, the more threatened people on the fringes are. As a fierce advocate for equality myself, this bothers me in some ways but amuses me in others.

It amuses me because it often appears like a bunch of toddlers throwing a fit because they aren't getting their way, so they start to get desperate and become willing to do anything that will get them attention.

Marriage equality, along with protection against discrimination, isn't a tool being used to manipulate society, much to the dismay of those who want to insist that it is. It is a basic and fundamental human rights issue. No more, no less.

There is no agenda. There is no recruiting going on. This is not contagious.

Not a single LGBT person I know honestly gives a shit whether a total stranger likes them or not, whether they approve of their life or not.

They just want to be seen as equal human beings in the eyes of the law with all the same rights and protections. They want to be insulated from discrimination and inequality.

You'll never be able to make me understand how a person can say that someone else being treated as an equal in the eyes of the law is a threat to their way of life.

You'll never be able to explain to me the inconsistency inherent in a person who simultaneously claims that their religious freedom is being infringed while they actively suppress the freedoms of others on the precise religious grounds they claim are being infringed. It's a logical fallacy.

Ellen Page, Michael Sam. Their coming out in the last weeks has been news because it is news and it will remain news for as long as homophobia exists. Until LGBT people no longer feel compelled to come out, until they no longer have to declare who they are to the world, until they are just accepted as equals, until they are seen as equals under the law, it will be news.

No agenda. Just a fight for fairness.

I can always count on my brother to keep me honest.

For real.

The irony comes in where he pretends he doesn't read what I write, but then asks about something I wrote.

He is always, always, always the first one to call me out when I do something stupid, when I say something I shouldn't, when I write something that contradicts something I wrote before.

He is the king of leaving and then deleting comments on my Facebook page. I wonder sometimes if he even means for me to see them, he does it so fast. Usually I do see them, and they usually are right on about some aspect of something I overlooked or glossed over or neglected to talk about.

I should tell you this. We couldn't be further apart in how we see the world if we tried, him and I. We rarely agree on much, but we learned a long time ago how to talk about anything and not get stabby. We respect each other's perspectives. We understand that we see the world a different way. We accept it all.

That part, the acceptance piece, is huge.

I don't think it happened, if I am being honest, entirely, until our father was sick.

Incidentally, if you read here often, you know that I usually write about my father's illness and death as though it occurred in some bizarre only child vacuum. There's a reason, and the reason is that my brother hates it when I write about him, so I usually try not to.

Yet, I'm doing it today anyway.

I'm doing it now because there is this piece of who we are that is cool and weird and seems way too grown up and mature.

It's the acceptance part.

It goes a bit like this, and I've tried to explain it to people, but I sense that it might be something you have to live to understand. Anyhow...when our father was ill, I was here, a thousand miles away and my brother was there. In the same town. In the same place. At their house almost every single day.

We necessarily had a different experience with it all as a result. For a while, we were frustrated with each other. It's easier to cast blame on someone else for whatever you think their shortcomings are when they aren't physically in the same space you are. It's easier to believe whatever stories you've been told when you aren't privy to living it first hand. It's easier to get angry about what the other person is or isn't doing when they are too far away to really know.

Having sick parents is stressful. Having dying parents is stressful. Having parents with mental health issues is stressful. Having parents who refuse to take care of themselves is stressful.

Having to deal with all that while living your life, dealing with your spouse and children magnifies everything.

Being stuck in the generational sandwich can suck it.

At some point though, though, we had this moment. It probably happened when our father was in the ICU the first time about a year before his death. When my brother and I were in the same physical space long enough to see that the other one of us was doing the best we could with the information we had, the frustration disappeared.

We realized that neither of us had any idea what the other one was dealing with. We realized that we had to honor the role of the other one, that we had to talk to each other more and rely on what anyone else told us less. We understood that we each had different gifts and abilities and patience levels. We knew then that we could help both of our parents better if we were a team.

From that point on, things were just different for us. Better.

No more bickering. No more animosity. No more resentment.

Isn't that the kind of relationship that siblings should have, eventually anyway? They are, after all, the only people in the entire universe who came from the same place we did. They are the only people who could ever possibly understand the crazy things we were subjected to as kids, why we are the way we are.


They are the best able to understand us.

They are the most equipped to tell us when we're derailing our lives.

They are the usually first ones in line to tell us we're wrong.

And that's all okay, or at least it can be if we go about it the right way.

He called me on something this week, and he was right. He was absolutely right.

In the post I wrote on the anniversary of our father's death, I gave mention to feeling manipulated in the past by my mother and her incessant need for everything to be worse for her. She really did spend a lot of time minimizing our grief, and I can tell you that it gets old in a hurry.

He sent me a message the following morning, after clearly not reading the post (wink, wink), saying that if I truly believe, as I do, that she suffered from intractable mental health problems, then I can't blame her for being the way she was.

And he was right.

I can't blame her. I don't blame her, though it may have seemed that I was doing just that to a casual reader. I don't blame her. I don't want it to seem like I did or do.

Death is so weird that way. I feel like I have to make everything about them in the past tense now, and that just seems so wrong. Anyway...

As I told him when he pointed out my flawed reasoning, or at least the way I had presented it, my response was this:

And therein lies the inherent value of siblings.

They know exactly what that means.

No matter how horrible this journey has been,


For that gift, given to me by my parents, I will be eternally grateful.

Ahhhh, Valentine's Day.

The day that we are told is filled with promises of exquisite jewelry, bouquets of extravagant flowers, wining and dining at the finest of restaurants.

That's what the commercials want us to believe, anyway.

In real life for us, it means lobster and steak cooked at home, eaten in a candlelit dining room after the kids have gone to bed as the dishwasher hums in the background.

There is no new jewelry, except perhaps the most recent bracelet crafted on the Rainbow Loom.

If there are flowers, they come directly from the grocery store, though in all likelihood, the flowers were skipped because we understand that the same flowers that were $10 yesterday and will be $10 tomorrow are $30 today. We've grown too practical to throw money away on frivolous things.

Besides, lobster was on sale, and we all know that is a better use of the money.

There might be a card, if we remember, though at some point we gave up on them too. Seeking out an overpriced piece of paper holding words that are only tangentially relevant to our love seems like a waste of time anymore. There isn't a card that fits us now. Perhaps there never really was, we just wanted to believe that we could fit into the tiny boxes society told us we were supposed to.

Love, real love, isn't about flowers or chocolate or jewelry or fancy dinners.

Real love is nights spent cuddled under blankets on the couch until you fall asleep.

Real love is a call on the way home to ask if you need anything at the store.

Real love is flowers on an ordinary Tuesday just because.

Real love is bringing you a roll of toilet paper when you are trapped in the bathroom.

Real love is asking if you are okay before laughing at how you got hurt.

Real love is shoveling the driveway.

Real love is letting her cry.

Real love is pacing in a waiting room.

Real love is being vulnerable again.

Real love is saying sorry.

Real love is second chances.

Real love is messy.

Real love is beautiful.

Real love is the everyday pieces of who we are, what we do for one another, the unspoken things woven in the tapestry of this connection between two people.

Real love isn't one day.

Real love isn't one moment.

Real love is the spaces in between.

Happy Valentine's Day, my friends.


Mr. Hive, I love you.

Hi. I haven't done one of these in a while, and a lot of stuff has happened around here that I haven't written about so I figured it was well past time to revisit Nerdsday.


For those of you new to the Hive, an introduction might be in order. I'm a nerd. Always have been, though I spent a good portion of my life actively suppressing it (poorly, I might add). I love so many things in the Nerdiverse that I wouldn't even know where to begin.

This probably explains a bit of it.


And this.


I love superheroes and sci-fi and fiction and The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones and table games and Doctor Who and Sherlock and lots and lots of other things.

Anyhow, Thursday is the day where I (occasionally) tell you about something I love in the Nerdiverse.

I have a lot of new material to write about because we acquired a lot of new games in the past few months, including my husband's current obsession, Pathfinder, Rise of the Runelords, which is a card game version of Pathfinder. I will write about that one for next time though, unless Cards Against Humanity wins the battle in my head for priority.

I did get my own set of dice for Pathfinder though, so maybe....

Anyhow, this week, I wanted to write about the game we have played the most as a family since we bought it - DC Comics Deck-Building Game.


Though I adore all things Ironman and Loki, my loyalty will probably always lie with DC over Marvel. I can't say why, really, that is just the way it is. There is a Marvel version of the game as well, which I am sure will somehow magically find a way into our cabinets eventually.

In this game, each player chooses a hero to play as. Each hero in the deck has a different ability, which comes in handy throughout the game as long as one thing happens: you remember who you are and what your ability is. Easier said than done, especially if you change heroes each time.

I always play as Wonder Woman. I know this comes as a shock to you.


After choosing heroes, each player is dealt 10 cards to begin the game with. Starter cards are either worth 1 point or 0, and you use those points to acquire new cards throughout the game, adding them to your deck. You play five cards each round, unless the cards you have allow for more.

To acquire new cards, take the cards in your hand and add up the purchase points. Many cards (and some heroes) alter this number, so be sure to stay on top of it. Location cards often allow for an extra card to be drawn. Use those points to acquire cards in the line-up.

In addition to the main deck line-up to pull from, there are also Kick cards - which give you two additional points every time they show up in your hand and Supervillians - which each have their own set of powers.

The game ends when the stack of Supervillains has been defeated or when the entire main deck is exhausted.

Depending on who your hero is, as you play through the rounds, you may focus on acquiring heros, powers, equipment or villains. Wonder Woman seeks villains, as they increase her hand size every time one is acquired.

The winner of the game is the player who tallies up the most star points at the end of the game, which are different than both the cost of the card or the playing value, minus the number of weaknesses they pick up along the way. (Unless you have Bizarro. Bizarro is pretty kick ass.) It's a little tricky the first few rounds keeping all the values straight, but you will get the hang of it and learn the strategy of your hero quickly.

The game is labeled for ages 15 and up, but my three older children can play it without any problems. Our 8 year old has won the game more than once.

It takes approximately one hour to set up and play the game start to finish, though it might take a bit longer the first time until everyone feels comfortable with the rules.

If you dress as your hero, the game is infinitely more entertaining.

Just a suggestion.

I spent a good long time yesterday pouring out my soul in a piece that may never be published. I do that a lot, actually. Sometimes they get edited and posted. Sometimes I just hit the delete button and never look back. Sometimes I enlist the help of trusted friends for guidance and wisdom.

Sometimes I write it just because I need to get the words out, like the proverbial letter scratched out in anger and frustration and sadness then set aflame and tossed ceremoniously in a wastebasket.

I think this one needs to be set on fire.


These things, the hardest ones to write about, sometimes I am not ready to let them out yet. Not here, anyway. I try to always be cognizant of the affect my words might have on others. Even if it will carry some benefit for someone out there reading, I have to worry first about protecting myself, protecting my children. I don't have to protect my parents anymore, but I still need to shield my kids.

This is one of the pieces that could bring with it ramifications. Not horrible ones, but some nonetheless. It contains too many of my truths in one place. Too much of my past. Things I still haven't really worked through myself.

Maybe someday I will be ready. I don't know. This one might stay away from the public forever.

There is so much that you all don't know about me. This piece I wrote, it is one of the parts of me that even most of my best friends in the world don't know about. One of the things that I still carry shame and regret about, though I am trying to forgive myself.

Even with all that, the lesson it all taught me was it was one of the most important I have learned in my life thus far, one that I carry with me every day, one that keeps me writing about the things that people don't always want to read about. A lesson that literally took me twenty years to learn.

I don't always want to write about the hard stuff, but I do it anyway.

Sometimes I don't really have a choice. It comes out or it eats away at my soul.

Making people uncomfortable is my thing, after all. I talk about the truths and the realities that we would rather live without seeing. The things we would rather deny. The things we would rather ignore. The things we would rather rationalize.

Sometimes, though, even I can't do it.

I can't hit the publish button.

I had coffee with someone new yesterday, someone that I met through this bizarre online world, someone that began the day a stranger and ended the day a friend.

She could see it.

My internal conflict, almost constant in my head. Sometimes it comes out here. Sometimes I'm elusive about it all, sometimes I lay it all out for the world to see. The conflict, though, is almost always there.

Thus is the life of a writer. 

If you do it long enough, you end up writing about all of the things. The menial, the mundane, the boring and bland. You write about the important, the significant, the controversial, the real. You write about the truth and the lies, the pain and the loss.

Then there are all the things you keep inside. The stories untold, the secrets kept, the times that you want nothing more than to shout it from the rooftop, but you won't allow it.

You refrain.

I sense that the writers out there will know exactly what I'm talking about, particularly the ones who have been at this long enough to have been sitting where I am right now, staring at the words running across the screen as they come screaming out.

The writers will know what I mean when I talk about the absolute therapeutic value in letting the words out, even just to ourselves, even if no one else ever sees them.

The writers out there will understand what I mean when I say that the words just need to be set on fire.

Okay you guys, there is a lot to cover this week, so I won't bother with an introduction. Off we go.


News That Isn't News
Welcome to the USA, land of fluffy stories on television cleverly disguised as news. I won't say which network it is, but one of the locals has started running an ad that says something along the lines of bringing you the news that you want to see. 

Well. Um. That's not news. News is news, actual reporting of events and stories and relevance. It is the good, the bad and ugly, even if the people at home get uncomfortable. The role of the news isn't to make us happy, to keep us content and complacent, to tell us what we want to hear. It is supposed to provide us with information we can't get anywhere else.

Instead, these days, to get the actual news stories that are important, not just locally but on a global level, we have to actively seek it out. I can't count on the networks, any of them, to do solid objective reporting anymore. It seems that everything is spun and then either sugarcoated or sensationalized, depending on whether this news channel just wants to make us feel better or wants to get us riled up.

That isn't news. What the hell happened?

I shouldn't have to watch BBC to get real news.

The Biggest Loser Drama
I'll preface what I am about to say by telling you all (again) that I avoid almost every reality show currently being produced. I like writing and scripts and can't stand the genre of reality shows for the most part. The Biggest Loser has always been my least favorite of them all for the simple fact that weight shouldn't be a game show.

We have a nation with issues when it comes to weight and nutrition and exercise at both ends of the spectrum. Rising obesity rates, recess and physical education being cut at school, increasing rates of preventable disease on one hand, eating disorders on the other. I've been on both ends. It's not fun either way, let me tell you.

The show, in my opinion, has always sent the wrong message. It shames the obese, embarrasses them on public television, tempts them with bountiful spreads of unhealthy food, forces them to workout for hours on end, then weighs them weekly to see whether they get to stay on the show or not. It's sick, honestly, and gives people the wrong idea about what healthy weight loss is supposed to be like. Most people don't have staffs preparing food, have personal trainers screaming at them, have entire teams rooting for or against them or are subjected to weekly humiliation.

Granted, contestants sign up for it, but most of them do it out of desperation having tried to lose the weight for years. That isn't exactly my definition of total consent. But I digress. I hate the show. But that isn't why I'm talking about it. I'm talking about it because of Rachel Frederickson, you know, the contestant who lost "too" much according to most of the commentary out there.


Here's the thing, America...isn't she exactly what the show is supposed to hold out as the example? If we are going to be pissed about people judging her when she was 260 pounds, then we can't hate on her when she is 105 either. Is she healthy now? Was she healthy then? I don't know, and quite honestly it is none of my business. I'm not her doctor. I'm not her.

We should be worrying about one thing when it comes to diet and exercise: health. When I say that we should be worrying about health, that includes mental health as well. Along those lines, we should recognize the truth that far more people in this country tie their value as human beings to the number on that scale and shows like this one only feed that beast, and that's not healthy at all, regardless of what the number is.

Leave her alone. While you are at it, leave the fat people alone too. Seriously.

The Worst Parents Ever?
You guys know that I'm not one for judging other people. I literally spend time every day reminding myself not to do it. Then a case like this one floats past my eyes online and I can't fight it anymore.

Alexa Linbloom died after being removed from life support last month. Her cause of death was acute water/fluid intoxication. She was five, and had been forced by her father and stepmother to consume more than two liters of grape soda and water in less than two hours as a punishment for taking her stepmother's soda.

Her body, literally, couldn't hold all the fluid. Her brain swelled too much and she died. They have both been arrested and charged with first degree murder, neglect and abuse. 

The Racist Olympic Cauldron Lighter
Here's something super fun! Just kidding.

So, the woman who lit the cauldron for the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics is named Irina Rodnina. She's won the gold medal three times and is a member of the public chamber in Russia. She also tweeted this insanely racist picture of President Obama in September.


She removed it almost immediately, but never apologized, instead claiming freedom of speech.

Please tell me you are laughing ironically right now.

Because the freedom of speech absolutely protects writers there, or protesters, or anyone who has a public opinion about equal rights, or anyone who is fighting against oppression. (please tell me you know I am being sarcastic. Please.)

Speaking of Russia, there is so much about it that we are oblivious to here. A friend shared this post from a native Russian about how misguided the media is, obsessing about the conditions in the village but ignoring the real issues present every day for the people who live there. It is most definitely worth a read.

It'll Be News When An Athlete Comes Out Until It Isn't Anymore. Period.
Michael Sam came out in a press conference Sunday. The defensive lineman from the University of Missouri has entered into the NFL draft this year. He is set to be the first openly gay man drafted in the league.

Why is this news? Because it is. The NFL is one of the last bastions of homophobia in our society, one of the places where you aren't supposed to be gay, you aren't supposed to talk about it, and god forbid, you aren't supposed to bring it into the locker room. Gasp!

As soon as the news came out and stories started to roll out, the comments started to pour in.

"When will it be newsworthy that I am white and straight?"

"This is news why?"

"He needs to read the Bible. Being gay is a sin."

This is news because he's doing it when he doesn't have to, when many of the reporters and teammates already knew. He is taking a huge risk and a huge leap of faith with a statement like this publicly going into the draft, because like it or not, this will probably affect which teams want him now. It's news because he's the first one to go into the draft as an openly gay player. It's news because he is breaking down barriers.

It will stop being news when it's not news anymore.

It will stop being news when people of all sexual orientations are accepted and don't have to feel compelled to come out anymore.

It will stop being news when sexual orientation isn't used as a basis to discriminate against people or deny rights to them.

It will stop being news when people are judged on their abilities alone, not who they love.

It will stop being news when it's not news anymore, and not one second before that moment.

Deal with it.

Snaps.

Has it only been three years?

Has it already been three years?

So much has happened that it has to have been that long since the last time he was with us, since the morning we spent around his bed, holding his hand, waiting, watching. So much that it must have been that long or longer even.

In some ways it seems like decades have passed.

In others, it seems like he was just here.

This is the first time that this day has arrived when my mind hasn't been occupied somewhere else, worrying about her, my mother, nervously wondering how she would cope with it all this time around. The first time without the phone calls and messages left and awkward exchanges and wondering if she really was okay and her never being even a little bit concerned about me and her minimizing whatever I was feeling because she always felt more, hurt more, needed more.

This is the first time that I can grieve for me.

Without the distractions.

Without being worried about someone else.

Without being told that my grief wasn't big enough.

It's calming, actually, this place that I am in now.

It still hurts, but the edges of the pain are dulled a bit. The memories come now and they wash over me and leave me with a smile on my face rather than the heartache they used to leave behind.

I have learned a lot on this journey through life without him. He taught me so many lessons, some of which I did not even realize at the time. Some of them are still coming back to me now, all these years later, like the one about spilling the milk. 

He taught me to be strong, to be resilient. He taught me to speak my mind, to lay out my arguments so well that people couldn't find the holes in them. He taught me to love music, to love the time I spend behind the wheel in the car, to love with my whole heart. He was the first to call me a writer, and I know he'd be prouder of me right now than anyone else could ever be.

I miss him. I miss him every day.

As I begin a new journey in my life, a familiar one, but one that I'm embarking on this time without him, my heart aches.

It hurts for all the things he won't be here to see, for all the moments without him. It hurts for the times he won't share with us.

Then a part of me knows that he is still with us.

He lets me know from time to time.

I have a feeling I'll be seeing a lot of him in the coming years.

I will welcome those moments. I will drink them in when they come. I will let the memories in, I will learn the lessons, I will be grateful for the chance to have been his little girl.


I miss you, Dad.

I love you.