When you're walking in the winter I want to be the one who warms your freezing hands like a perfect fitting glove. When you run quickly inside, seeking shelter from the snow, I want to be your sanctuary when frigid winds begin to blow. When temperatures begin to drop, if your heart begins to freeze, I'll melt you like hot chocolate, to ninety-eight point six degrees. So hold me like a coffee mug, we'll walk in step and sideways hug. I'll wrap you like a winter coat, with warming words and poems I wrote. For at least in this blizzardy winter, no need, my dear, to shake and shiver. Just take my hand, this winter will be better. We'll melt like hot chocolate with each other.

I thought I would share this with all of you in hopes that maybe someone, anyone, might take any part of it to heart. My dad and I had, at times, a rather tumultuous realtionship. But there is something so much deeper than all of the trials that any relationship undergoes. The love between a parent and child, the love between a father and daughter, should trump every arguement, every disagreement, every piece of bitterness. I beg each and every one of you reading this- put down any bit of pride you may be holding on to and make an ardent effort to live in peace with your parents. Make an ardent effort to love them more than you ever thought you could. Make an ardent effort to be the son or daughter that I wish I could still be to my dad.

I wrote this letter this morning. I thought it would help me feel better. I don't think it did.


Dad,

Sometimes I have to fight the urge to be angry with you. For leaving me here. Behind. When I turned sixteen I couldn't even imagine that I was beginning the last year Id ever spend with you. Eleven months between your diagnoses and your death. Eleven months was not enough notice. I know we all have to die at some point, but seventeen years with you was just not enough. Sometimes I feel angry at other people, those who got more time with you. I sometimes get so, so angry with my friends who talk so hatefully about their fathers. I want to literally smack them, to snap them out of it, to wake them up to reality. I want to scream at them "He may have faults, and those faults may hurt you. But damn it! He's your Father, now love him! Love him while you can!"
I've not seen you in 4 1/2 years. When you're only 21, that's a big chunk of life. When you first died I had dreams about you every night. Haunting dreams that were so real, they would terrify me. (I miss those terrifying dreams now that I don't have them) I don't think I slept in my own bed for a month. I had to sleep in mom's living room with the tv buzzing obliviously all night. To distract me from my own thoughts. To distract me from the complete loneliness that I felt from the moment we put you into the ground. I have no where to call home. I have no place I am fully a part of. I want to watch football with you on Sundays after church. I hate football and haven't been to church hardly since you died. I want to do it anyway. I want to listen to your stupid talk radio when I'm driving, just because you did. I want to laugh really loud at movies and I want my hair to always look perfect and I want everyone me to just fall in love with me. I remember when I was a little girl, maybe eight, and it was winter in Michigan. It was so cold; I don't remember where we were exactly, but I do remember the icy whipping wind stinging my face. We were walking through a parking lot and as we crossed you reached down to hold my hand. I quickly pulled my hand away and was embaressed because, as i told you, I was just too old to be holding my daddy's hand. And now, right now, the one and only thing I want in my entire life is to walk with you over a slippery snow covered parking lot, unashamedly holding your hand.

-Your little girl