Goodbye

I'd never said goodbye to someone I loved. I didn't know it would hurt so terribly... that I would have tears spring to my eyes without warning a million times a day for months slowly lessening but never seeming to stop. I didn't know that there would be moments and spaces in time left empty forever. Or that sometimes I would cry without processing a single thought other than an expression on his face. I had no idea that it would take two years before I could tell my daughter that he loved mushrooms and apricots (not together) as we walked through a produce section without crying. That it would take years before I could tell a story about him without giving up entirely in a sea of tears. I didn't even suspect that his death would drive me to suicidal thoughts or binge eating. I hadn't the faintest idea of how much I loved him or even really how much he loved me. 

But here I am 2 years and four months later, wishing he was here to be my dad and laugh at me playing a mad scientist in a silly church skit just like he always was when I was a kid. 

I told Jody goodnight tonight and I pressed my face into his shirt just to smell him. And I love him. I know I do. But it scares me that for now, I don't even know how much.