Little Things

[cbtreks]

It's been over a year since Dad died - definitely a new kind of year for me, one in which I never knew, emotionally, just what to expect. It's funny, every single anniversary and birthday which I would've expected to upset me didn't. Christmas - I was fine. Dad's birthday - I was fine. Father's Day - I deliberately didn't go to church anywhere just to avoid all the fatherly celebrations, but actually, I was fine. We had our monthly dinner at mom's and it felt like a regular Sunday. But the next Sunday, I visited a local church and the first hymn they sang was "The Old Rugged Cross". I sat and cried - it's one of the first hymns I remember singing in "grownup church", sitting next to my dad. The day of his memorial, at our family reunion, far from being sad, was more fun than anything, and I loved hearing everyone's stories, especially my cousins who knew him as a teenager.

I had a few weepy moments during the week of August 12 (that was the week he visited last year) and I thought the anniversary of his death would upset me but it didn't. Last Friday at work, though, I was happy to be able to duck into my attorney's empty office and bury myself in some filing when I saw another attorney walk through the office with his little girl, also called Colleen, also a cute, chubby little brown-haired girl, happy to be with her daddy at the office, just as I was at that age. Now that - if I could've, I would've sat down and cried for an hour because that made me sad. But mostly, it hasn't been a horrible year. There have been ups and downs and moments that have caught me completely by surprise, but mostly it's been ok. I think that's what Dad would want for my sisters and me.