Dear Dad,

I didn't expect to miss you this much. I didn't expect to be so angry at a doctor who failed to diagnose the thing that took you away from us a decade or two before it should have. I didn't expect to cry every day, to have to avoid certain music on my playlist, or to have to take the process of sorting through your things very slowly so as not to collapse in a puddle of tears every few minutes.

I didn't expect that I'd be fine for the month from the cremation to the service, get through the service just fine, and then start feeling this ache, this void in my life.

I didn't speak at the service because our relationship was complicated, and I didn't think it appropriate to give your friends a more balanced view of who you were, which is the only way I could have truly expressed how I felt about your passing. It wouldn't have been right to tell your friends what you did to me as a child, how the years I've spent in therapy have largely been to compensate for your "parenting," or how I very nearly disowned you... even though it would have made the fact that I ended up loving you and missing you to the point of despair all the more meaningful.

I'm sorry that it ended this way. I'm sorry that we didn't push harder for a diagnosis, or insist on lower doses of certain medications. I'm sorry that I didn't have a home to bring you to so you wouldn't have to die in that facility. I'm sorry this all happened the way it did, and that you won't be able to walk me down the aisle like you wanted to.

I'm sorry I didn't realize sooner how hard it would be to live without you.

I love you, Dad.