Dear Daddy,

Daddy,
Today is a hard day.  Sometimes you think that the pain of loss will lessen over time, but Im not so sure.  I'm not sure that celebrating your birthday without you will ever get easier.  I don't think that answering my four year olds questions about "Why did my grandpa have to die"  will ever be any less painful.  Sometimes I can get through days where you are not on the forethought of my mind.  Then there are days when I open my mouth and you come out.  There are so many ways that I am just like you and now I can see those same traits, for good or bad, in my children every day.  Whether it is Quinn's assertiveness.  Rorey's no no nonsense when standing up to her sister.  When I look at my face in the mirror I cant help but see you staring back at me.  This face that you gave me will always remind me of what was.  I don't forget about the times that were hard, where we hardly even spoke to each other.  I choose to dwell on the love that I always know was there even when things weren't easy.  I think about your face when you got to meet my baby girl.  How proud you said you were of me when I went to college and pursued my dreams.  How you danced with me on my wedding day.  I choose to think about the long talks we had when I cared for you during your hospital stay, I don't think I ever knew you better than that time.  My days are also filled with frivolous wishes.  I wish you could have met my other baby and seen her face.  I wish you were there when they were baptized.  I wish I had asked you how you felt about God.  I wish that I had know where your soul resides.  I wish that I had loved you more freely in the time I had.  I wish my girls would know you more than just from my memories.  I wish you knew how much you meant to me though I never got around to saying it.  Sometimes my heart breaks thinking about the wishes that I have.  I try to focus on your voice in my head where I can hear you calling my name (when you called me the right one).  Today on your birthday almost three days after the day when I never got to say goodbye, my heart hurts.  It hurts from the love I feel, the sadness I can't escape, the moments that never were, and all the feelings I can't even put words to.
                               Love you,