20 Years Later
My Dad had dentures. From what I remember him telling me, he needed to get some teeth pulled, and he decided to just get them all removed. It was cheaper to get them all yanked out and to get dentures instead, so that’s the route he took. Whether this is true or not, I may never know.
What I do know is how much he loved the outdoors. Growing up, we went on lots of hiking and camping trips. Before he met my mom, he was an avid mountain climber — he even summited Mount St. Helens multiple times. In the last years of his life, we started mountain biking on local trails. I can still see his face light up as he raced past us; elated that his failing body still allowed him to fly down the path.
He also loved photography. He used to have a dark room where he would develop his own pictures; and he would geek out over various cameras and lenses. Now and again, he would take freelance jobs of weddings and such. From what I recall, he never actually wanted to do it professionally; not wanting his passion to erode into a job.
Growing up, he led a Bible study. That was actually how he met my Mom. She attend, they became friends, fell in love, and married. One piece of advice that he gave me, over and over, was “marry your best friend”. Which is exactly what he had done when he walked down the aisle for the first and only time. But I digress.
This coming Saturday will be the twentieth anniversary of his passing. 20 years… is a long time to live with a hole in your heart. Twenty years is a long time to slowly lose hold of the memories of someone who was the world to you. Two decades of life spent without him.
And I still miss him. Twenty years later.
He didn’t have to be my Dad. He could have seen my Mom with her two young kids and split. But he didn’t. He loved us as if we were his own. Because we were his own. He took us under his wing and built a family. He loved us with such a ferocity and was proud of us — even when we would occasionally let him down. He encouraged us to follow our dreams. He taught us lessons and became the bedrock of our young family.
He loved us. So much.
And even now, twenty years later, all I want to do is make him proud.
It’s a true testament that, even as I type this, I’m crying my eyes out. Because, twenty years later, the grief is still there. I still miss him so much. Twenty years later, I’m still brought to tears by a picture or a random flash of memory.
Twenty years later, I still miss him. So much. Because grief has no more of a expiration date than love does. Because, at the end of the day, grief is just love that keeps going long after the other person leaves us.
