A Year Later, if you can believe it

I can't start this by saying anything along the lines of how time flies, because the last year has not flown. It was at times painfully slow, in fact, and though not all bad, much (much, much) of it was less than optimal, shall we say. Still, I just can't believe it has been a year since my dad died. It still feels impossible. That's not funny, I want to say. Cut it out. Bring him back.

I had a dream recently where my mother and I were somewhere, and Dad wandered by, and I wasn't sure it was him because he looked so lost. That's not something he ever used to look like. Mum knew it was him, though, and then the dream went somewhere else in the way dreams do. It made me sad, in a nagging, back of the mind way. I didn't recognize my dad, because that wasn't what he was like, all my life. I miss the man he was, the part of my life he filled.

The difference from a year ago, I guess, is that sometimes I can forget the hole is there. Other times, of course, I still fall right into it.

I think that from now on, three days a year will be particularly, or rather predictably* bad: his birthday, the day he died, and Father's Day.

*Any day can be a bad one, but some are more than likely to be.

That said, today wasn't a bad day. I went to the grocery store, did laundry, watched some non-Bruins hockey with a cat sleeping on my lap, made dinner, and even got to open a window for a while. Really not that bad.

For a bad day.