all on the table

 I've just got nothing this week, family. Every post I write turns sad and depressing and off.

We've had great people for dinners and kids going every direction, sunshine galore, great Tuesday small group, today is my BF Elisa's birthday, Easter stuff, Aunt Sharon is supposed to come for the weekend, baby geese, roasted marshmallows, good family time, a few bday parties, a few episodes of The Chosen with the big four, lots of good and sweet things...and then some hard things. Stuff my dad thought he took care of and was so awfully sick at the end he hadn't. Some hard things the girls are going through that are stretching me deeply to know how to help and disciple them well. Trying to figure out some changes for next year that require a lot of work and a lot of faith. Missing home...remembering all the traumatic, abrupt, massive transitions of these days three years ago. Missing. My. Dad. 

I see a picture, and I just cannot, cannot believe that he is done. That he's not going to be there. That he's not coming back. That there will never ever be another phone call.  That no one again will ever love me like my parents did. Trying to find healthy ways to accept this and to heal in the middle of so much mom-mom-momming feels almost impossible.  Trying to just 'put it away' so I can keep on keeping on...almost impossible, too.

I know it's all just part of it. I know it's all just grief. 

It just sits in the middle of the table, it is always there. You eat around it, live around it, sit with it. Try not to look it square in the face. It's not going anywhere. 

Neither am I. 

Just dad.