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.

I know you didn’t mean to Daddy. I know you wouldn’t have left Grandma stranded if you could have helped it. If you would have expected it. To die.

I don’t know what broke you along the way. I don’t know what made you think you were so much more than less than. Why you didn’t think you …. why didn’t try harder to have things you deserved. People you deserved. I used to not understand why you wouldn’t let people in in those last few years. I think now you let the depression wrap you up and whisper to you that no one would come anyway so you sat in your chair and pouted and told yourself that you were getting what you deserved.

But you let her kill you Dad. And that wasn’t okay. You deserved better than that. You deserved more than what depression promised you. Depression promised you that no one would love you. Only her. That no one would help. Only her.

And when the voices of your sons told you otherwise, depression drowned them out. Depression and brokenness told you that they didn’t mean it. That they were out for something or that they wouldn’t really be there like they promised.

You never thought yourself worthy of loving. Really loving. and dammit dad. You were.

I mean, okay fine. Sometimes you were not. Sometimes you were a real prick sumbitch. Let’s face that. Dean wasn’t always a joy to be around. But here’s the thing – Your heart was good. And even after you died – your heart was the only part of you that wasn’t just ravaged. You had a good heart to the very end.

I never could fix you. I didn’t understand. And even if I could have understood, I wasn’t the one to fix you – that was up to you. But I think the whispers of worthlessness took their toll on you and wrecked your confidence.

I’ve fixed me. Most of the time. Not always. Depression winds its nasty web around me sometimes too. The difference is that I now know to keep scissors at the ready to cut away its sticky bonds that try to pull me down. I don’t think you ever knew you had a chance to grab the scissors and hack away.

You were a good man. People did love you. People miss you still. As for me . . . in the quiet of the night . . . I reach my heart out through the veil . . . I hold your broken hearted childness . . . I rock you and pray that somehow . . . somehow . . . this daughter’s love that finally understands you more . . . somehow you can feel me . . . and can let yourself be loved.

I’m fascinated with astro.com. (Thanks Cathy.) Plug in a person, birthday, birthtime, birthplace and there go hours of my life. Hey, ya’ll have Pinterest, I have astro.com

Since ya don’t easily work in “so, where were you born, uh huh, and what time was that?” in casual conversation, it’s a little limited in who you can look at “accurately”.

I got a wild hair to look at my relationship with my Dad according to the computer generated profile.

[This] is one of the more difficult positions for a composite Sun, because it is inherently a house of inequality. In most relationships there must be some balance between taking and giving. But in a relationship with a sixth-house Sun, one partner gives and the other takes. The great danger of this position is that one of you is likely to feel taken advantage of by the other. Fabulous start eh?

…This is the most competitive, argumentative, and pugnacious of all Sun-Mars combinations. It indicates particularly that the two of you have very different energy levels, which can cause all kinds of conflict. The negative and disruptive effects of this aspect can be mitigated if you both are very secure in yourselves. In that case, instead of regarding this competitive energy as a threat, you will take it as a challenge. Joyous.

….It suggests that you have a sense of having come together for a specific and necessary task or purpose that may not be completely pleasant. One of you may feel subordinated to the other in some way. Therefore, this is a difficult placement for any relationship that requires you to give and take equally, as most relationships do. I’m gonna take a guess we accomplished jack.

Venus conjunct Jupiter is one of the best aspects to have in a composite chart. No matter what the purpose of the relationship, this aspect will help fulfill it. Both of you will feel that this relationship reinforces you and makes life easier to bear. You will feel happier and more optimistic, which will help make events go well for you. In a personal relationship with this aspect, love and affection are abundant and easily expressed. You love each other for what you are. You are willing to give each other room to be whatever you want, and your experience of each other is not hindered by too-great expectations. Things can go wrong even with this aspect. But its presence in a composite chart will help the relationship to grow in a positive way and will help both of you to grow within it. Too bad we never made it here.

He would have been 65 last week. I miss him. I think I’m only beginning to mourn the potential relationship that we never got to grow into.