The Proudest Papa There Ever Was...

Love at first sight...

My dad...Will's Papa...passed away yesterday.....unexpectedly, from a heart attack...and I still don't honestly know all the details...

What I do know is that I am so heartbroken...and so overcome, that I don't know where else to turn but the keyboard....The written-word is always the best outlet for me. It helps me organize and clear my head in a way that talking never could.

It may seem weird to be blogging about this so soon--but I feel lost. Normally, when I feel like this--I call my dad....

I need to hear his voice so badly right now...I always do when I'm feeling sad or scared. I feel like I have to continue to talk to him--I know how much he liked to read whatever I wrote. I feel like it was my connection to him. He was a singer and songwriter and I sometimes hoped he saw my writing as my songs without the melody....

As an unabashed Daddy's Girl, I could go on and on about how hard this is and will be for me. My relationship with him was very full and very special. But what I'm having the hardest time with right now, is my loss for Will...

When I told my dad that I was pregnant with Will, he cried like a baby he was so thrilled for me (and partially, I know he just couldn't believe I was grown up enough for this to be possible!). When my pregnancy developed complications and the threat of losing Will was so very, very real, I know that the only person who took it as hard as Jeff and I did, was my dad. I remember him telling me that he laid on the ground, in the space between his bed and the wall, because it was the only place that felt as low as he did. It was also so hard for him because it was the first (and I think last) time that I didn't come to him first in my time of stress. I leaned on Jeff, which is how we all knew it should have been, and my dad was left to grieve alone.

He later told me another story....when I was pregnant, my dad became obsessed with buying my coming little one a metal pedal car. He says he just knew it was a boy, and he just had to buy him this car. There was one week during my pregnancy that the threat of losing Will was so close, that many people, including my dad, had thought that our baby had passed away. On that day, my dad, who was a courrier, was making a delivery to an office building, and he walked into the office and sitting there was one of these metal pedal cars that he wanted so badly to buy for my baby. When I talked with him later and he found out that our little one was still alive and kickin' he said he knew that was a sign that our little boy would live to drive that car. I wish everyone who knew him could have been there watching on Will's 1st birthday when his Papa presented him with his shiny yellow pedal tow truck....

I'm trying hard to remember all my blessings....my dad watched me fulfil many of the dreams he had for me...he walked me down the aisle at my wedding...he was able to watch me welcome Will into the world...he saw his 1st and 2nd birthdays and christmases...he saw Will learn to walk and heard him learn to talk. And just this past Saturday, for the first and only time he heard Will tell his Papa "yeaub you" ....love you....

Anyone who's talked with my dad will tell you that his conversations were always full of updates on his girls, and lately mostly of Will...

He was truly the happiest, most proud Papa there ever was...and I will try and go forward knowing how happy and full these last years were for him....

I love you Dad....I will think of you and miss you every single day for the rest of my life. I will not let your memory fade, and I will raise Will to know how much you loved him and how much you loved his mama.