Missing you today.

I wore your shirt to bed last night. You know, the gigantic Harley Davidson eagle one you gave me to use as a nightgown? The first time I wore it (probably that night, but I don't really remember) the hem of it reached a couple inches above my knees. You were a pretty big guy. Now, although a 3X still swallows me up, it brushes the tops of my thighs. I've grown a lot taller since then. I probably couldn't tent the shirt over my pulled-in knees and cover my feet with it. (Never mind: Just checked. I totally still can, but there's a lot more fat in the middle and I have to hold on tight to my legs to keep from rolling away. Sigh.)

For some reason I had to dig that shirt out and wear it last night. I'm glad I did. It always makes me feel better to wear it when I miss you.

My birthday is tomorrow, and although I'm totally okay with that I woke up remembering that it's another year further from a time when you were with us. It's another year closer to the last year you got to see. Even when I was younger and high school kids seemed like grown-ups and 30 seemed ancient, I still knew that 33 was entirely too young for death. And now it's been 12 years. This November will make 13.

I wonder how different my life would be today if you were still here. Would we have still moved away? Would we have stayed to make visitations easier and allow them to still be frequent, or would we have changed the schedule up in respect of the 8-hour drive when we moved down here? I wish I had kept going to stay with you as often as I had at first, but I think what I had sensed back then was probably a touch of your depression. Your energy levels had fallen, and I felt bored and uncomfortable when staying there. It hurt too much. It seemed Mom had already moved on, but you seemed sort of stagnant. The whole situation must have been a major shot to your self-esteem, but I couldn't understand that then, so instead of visiting you when the siblings did I stayed home or found ways to be otherwise occupied. I try not to hold that against myself, because there's no way I could have known you would be taken from us so soon. 

It's just crazy how much your death affected all of us. My friends here know me so well, but they weren't the ones I turned to for comfort back then. They weren't the ones that surrounded me with love when I collapsed in tears in a science class because I was still grieving. You were the last person I called "Dad." Even if you weren't biologically my dad, you were my Dad. After you were gone nothing seemed permanent, everything became unstable. I couldn't count on anyone to stick around anymore. I really still don't. I just solve that problem by not getting too attached to anyone.

But mostly I wish you could see what you are missing now. My sister (your only biological kid) has grown into the most amazing person. She's absolutely gorgeous--she's going to be tall like you were (she's already almost as tall as Mom), and she totally has your nose. She looks a lot like Mom, but sometimes when I look at her the resemblance to you is astonishing. She's smart, she's funny as hell, and I'm so proud of her. I know you would be too. It really sucks she didn't get much time with you. It's not fair that she doesn't have all the memories of you that I do. I wish I could inject some of that directly into her brain, so she could experience and know the absolute love you had for her, for all of us kids.

I miss you every day. It's just not fair that we didn't get to keep you around for longer.