It’s been a long time coming. March will mark the 4th year since pulling the sheet over your face, and patting the top of your gray hair that last time. The last I looked at you.

Four years since you died and left without saying goodbye, leaving me confused and hurt and in a mess of shit you left behind (legally and literally).

Most of these four years I’ve fought you in my head. Railing against the daddy issues.

There’s a whole Mother Teresa quote that Colleen put up on fb yesterday. In a nutshell – people will be assholes – love them anyway. Or as I read it – love ’em anyway …. and any WAY possible.

Which after all this time, is where I’ve ended up with Dad. He was a flawed muthafucka. Love him anyway. Not because of some register of checks and balances – just love him anyway.

Once, I was on the phone with him right before he went into surgery. I could hear the outright fear in his voice. Mine was the calming voice. Telling him to believe that this was going to heal him . . . giving him a new script to overwrite the scary one in his mind.

I feel like that now. I feel like the parent. I love him anyway. Because he’s mine. Even when he’s not lovable or likable. Even now that he’s gone. I love him any WAY.

Which for me, is reaching out with my heart, and in my picture, he’s more of a child now, smaller than Alex. We rock in that quiet place in my heart, where I tell him it’s okay, it’s all okay . . . and it is true.

I suspect this mental ritual will take a while to bring true peace to me that lasts, but in these moments, where I feel like I’m swaying with my heartbeat, finally coming to terms with this lifetime of grief . . . ahhhhh what a good start.