On Tuesday, I'll fly home.

I'll stay in the place where my mom and DaddyO were married on an unseasonably warm October day.

It's also the place where Mike and I were married just over a year ago.

I can't wait to get there.

And a part of me wishes I could skip the week entirely.

Both things are true.

June 16th is the day DaddyO passed away.

The closer it gets, the more I notice the reminders.

The Father's Day emails.

The advertisements.

The social media posts.

A friend sharing a picture with her dad.

Sometimes I'll be completely fine.

Then something small catches me off guard and suddenly I'm crying.

And I let myself.

Because it's real.

DaddyO wasn't my biological father.

But he was my dad.

The only dad I ever knew.

The one who showed up.

The one I called when I needed advice.

The one whose voice I still hear in my head.

The one whose Father's Day gifts I carried home after he was gone.

He died two days before Father's Day.

I had already bought the gifts.

After everything was over, I brought them home with me.

I still think about them.

Not because of what they were.

Because of what they represent.

The illusion that there would be more time.

I remember getting the call.

I remember being told I should say goodbye.

Instead, I got on a plane.

I cried through the airport.

I cried on the flight.

And the entire way there I kept saying the same thing.

"Wait for me."

Somehow, he did.

I made it.

I got to hold his hand.

I got to tell him I loved him.

I got to watch him take his last breath.

That memory still haunts me.

And I am grateful for it.

Both things are true.

For a long time, I thought the hardest part was losing him.

It wasn't.

The hardest part was watching the world keep moving afterward.

People went to work.

The grocery store stayed open.

The sun came up.

Life continued.

And I couldn't understand how.

I was lost when DaddyO died.

Not financially.

Not logistically.

Soulfully.

This week, my heart hurts for me.

But if I'm honest, it hurts even more for my mom.

For my sisters.

For everyone who loved him.

One person leaves.

An entire family learns to live around the space they occupied.

And everyone carries it differently.

As I've gotten older, I've realized grief changed more than my relationship with loss.

It changed my relationship with life.

People sometimes assume my urgency comes from ambition.

Some of it comes from grief.

From understanding that later isn't guaranteed.

From knowing what it feels like to carry Father's Day gifts home for someone who never got the chance to open them.

This week I'll walk through the garden where my mom and DaddyO began their story.

I'll walk through the same place where Mike and I began ours.

I'll laugh with family.

I'll tell stories.

I'll probably cry.

And I'll miss him.

Not because I haven't healed.

Not because I'm stuck.

Because he mattered.

Because he still does.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I'll smile knowing that DaddyO is still woven into the fabric of my life.

Not just in the memories I carry.

But in the woman I became because he was here.