By the nature of more time together, and being the oldest, and their love of watching sports, there are infinitely more photos of Tim with A. She was the quintessential Daddy’s girl. R has always been attached to me, and it seemed whenever dividing and conquering was necessary, Tim took A, and I took R. He did a lot of fun daddy-daughter things with them both on Sunday mornings when D was first born, including an adventure where he printed out a map and they followed it all over the county… to Home Depot, Lowe’s, Barnes and Noble, Target….
Despite there being less total photos, R was daddy’s girl too. He adored her. And she adored her daddy. I love the picture I have of them in the hammock on her 4th birthday where he posted “chilling like April birthdays do.” The shared birthday month and astrological sign was a special connection for them.
She is our sensitive flower, and I know she struggles with her grief. She sometimes tells me she can’t remember his face. We have pictures all over so I don’t point this out. I don’t think a picture will help. She is getting her little heart and head around her grief and her loss, and she has poignant words for it sometimes. These have included “I can remember daddy’s glasses, but I can’t remember his face.”
These photos were from a year ago today. A Sunday afternoon when Tim returned from a brew tour weekend in Richmond with 5 of his best friends. He walked in and told me he was tired. I was like um, right, but you know I had all 3 kids all weekend, right?!? D was down for his nap, and Tim asked R if she wanted to go nap with him in the hammock. “Yes!” and they both fell asleep. I took the photo below of them in the backyard from our window. Then I brought the monitor outside. A had run down to play at a neighbor’s house, and I was sneaking off for a quick pedicure with one of my friends (and a wife of one of his friends from the brew tour!) The other two photos he took, their view from the hammock, and of course – a selfie of he and R.
I am grateful for the photos. I can always tell her how much he adored her, but a picture speaks a thousand words.
The memories are hitting me hard right now. I am marching steadily towards the anniversaries of those traumatic days, and I feel them coming like a freight train. Each day I can remember with more precision what we were doing last year, because they were his last days with us. How crazy to think we had no idea. But again, how glad I am for his sake that we had no idea.
Gather by Image 