Dad missing

For reasons unknown, I pulled the photo book signed at Tim’s Celebration of life down to look through / read tonight.

The thing that strikes me most from comments and pictures is what a great dad he was. Even as I ugly cry over how much I miss him, how obviously he was made to be a dad and loved it comes shining through and I have one of those moments of marveling at how truly devastating it is that he is not here for them, and he misses the dad moments with them.

Tonight at D’s blue gold cub scouts ceremony, they asked all the Eagle Scouts to stand up. I later told D that if daddy was there he could have stood…. But he was there in our hearts. D said to me “he was there in our hearts AND heads! In our imagination!”

Recently a friend told me someone asked her where my husband was, seemingly insinuating that I chose to raise these three kids alone, and she answered “dead.”

Tonight as I read through the comments and looked at the photos, I was reminded that everyone who knew Tim knew what a great dad he was, and how hard it is to be distanced from that time and place, when I could assume that everyone knew that.