For this alone on Death I wreak / The wrath that garners in my heart; / He put our lives so far apart / We cannot hear each other speak.

My dad would have turned 52 today, but he died instead.  He’ll have been gone 10 years this August.  I’m not very good at remembering dates.  I always forget when it’s a significant day, and then something or someone reminds me, and they hit me so hard.  So, now I’m missing him.  And feeling guilty about not remember his birthday, about not being with him when he died, about not thinking of him often enough, about every single time I ever said anything mean to him.  But these are not thoughts for here.  So I’ll share a happy memory with you!

It was my birthday.  I don’t remember which.  I’m going to guess it was my eighth or ninth, or maybe tenth, birthday, and all I wanted for my birthday was this mountain bike.  Right before we were going to have cake, my dad took me aside and told me that he wasn’t able to get me the bike I wanted, that he’d gone to buy it and they didn’t have any left, that he was sorry, that he’d tried.  And I understood that and told him so, that it was okay.  So they lit the candles and we cut the cake and we ate it, and then we all moved from the kitchen to the living room to open presents.  And there, in the middle of the room, on the big blue rug was the bike!  He’d tricked me, and I’d fallen for it.  He was so sincere and apologetic about it that it hadn’t even crossed my mind.  I was ecstatic and shocked, and I think there’s a picture somewhere of that moment, the bike in all it’s yellow and neon-green glory, my arms thrust so forcefully into the air in triumph that my shirt pulled up and you can see my little-kid belly, the hugest open-mouthed smile on my face.  And he made that moment for me.  And I loved him for it.  And I still do.

Miss.  You.