Dear Daddy

Dear Daddy,

It's Christmas Eve. Normally, mom's family would come over, we'd eat and we'd watch hours upon hours of A Christmas Story and laugh as though it was the first time we'd ever seen it. I'd tease you about how we'd need to go to bed because NORAD said Santa was near. When we were younger, I'd stay awake to listen for you and mom moving around after everyone had gone to sleep. I'd hear the rustling of packages and bags and wait anxiously for the lights to go out. I'd wait about a half hour then go see what was left under the tree and sort through my stocking. When I was little, Dylan and I would wake you and mom up and pull you into the living room to open presents. As I grew, it was usually you pulling me out of bed to join everyone else. I've never been a morning person, so you'd poke at me and try to get me to wake up more. You'd demand to see everything I got, even though you already knew, and you'd go "oooo" and "all right!" very excitedly with each gift.

We never knew what to buy for you. I'd started asking you in October what you wanted, and I got your usual response. "I don't know." It was your standard answer to any question regarding gifts for you. I'd already told you that I was going to buy you a dancing squirrel that sang Christmas carols if you didn't tell me what you wanted this year. Last year, I bought you a bobble head version of The Old Man from A Christmas Story. He has sat on the mantle since I gave him to you. I fixed him, by the way. I glued his hands back to him, so he's holding his leg lamp once more. I found a house that had a life sized leg lamp sitting in its front window. You would have loved it.

We're going to your mom's house tomorrow. While it will be nice to spend some time with part of your family, it's going to hurt so much to be there, with them, without you. Your picture is all over her living room and my eyes can't help but drift towards the little box that sits in front of her TV. I guess, in a way, you will be there with us.

Oh daddy, I'd give anything for you to come back. I have so many things I need to say to you. I want to be able to see you, just one more time. I didn't get to see you that day, and that will forever hurt me. I told you how much I loved you while we were in the hospital. I said a lot of things to you in the hospital, but it's not the same.

There's not a day that goes by that I don't have something to say to you or to ask you about or that I don't ache to hug you. My rational mind recognizes that nothing would be a greater tribute to the kind of man you were than for me to go on and live my life as a good and decent person, because that's how you and mom raised me. My emotional mind doesn't feel the same. We always differed in that respect. That's one of the major areas that we argued about. You didn't like for me to get upset about things that you thought were inconsequential. You'd tell me it did no good for me to get upset because it didn't accomplish anything. I know eventually I will do better. I'll never be fine, because this isn't something I will ever be okay with. But I will do better. I'm not focusing on that right now, though. I'm not ready to think about doing better. I'm not anywhere near ready.

I hope your first Christmas in Heaven is a good one. I hope you, and Uncle Walter have a good time with Maxwell and Tango. I hope Maxwell is stealing your socks. I hope Grandma and Grandpa Davis find you. I hope Uncle Jack is blasting your eardrums with a western on full volume. I hope you get everything you ever wanted up there. I know that's not exactly possible, because if it were, you'd have all this free time, and you'd be spending it with mom. One day you'll get that chance. I pray that you're happy, daddy. I hope it's possible. I don't know how you'll be, being without mom. Or us. You've never really been by yourself as far as I can remember. And I hate that you have to be without us now. One day we'll all be together though. We'll all be spending Christmas in Heaven together, and I can't wait.

Love,

Me.