i woke up (not so uncharacteristically) early this morning.

like every sunday morning, i thought about what i would be doing with my dad today.

i plopped down at my computer to write and found myself flooded with thoughts of him, but couldn’t find the right words to convey my feelings.

i started rummaging through old files and found this, dated 4/13/12:

i woke up this morning and planned to go to the gym, but instead i started to write…

and i wanted to write about the thing that i had been avoiding writing about: my dad’s cancer.

sunday was always our day. my brother, him, and me. it seemed appropriate that sunday would be the day i’d confront my dad’s mortality and put my thoughts to paper.

but i couldn’t do it.

and i became frustrated.

and so instead i cried.

i hate how easily the tears flow when the words won’t.

and while the overtones are sad, it didn’t make me blue.

sure it’s sunday, and sure it’s the day i miss baba most, but that’s ok.

i can’t change it, and that’s ok.

it wouldn’t change the fact that I still miss my dad almost a year later. or that i would still miss him a little bit every single day. it also wouldn’t change the fact that at every bit of laughter, every soccer game, every sunday, every fight with my mom, every accomplishment, every disappointment, and everything in between, i still close my eyes and wish that he were next to me. and, well, that’s ok.

on a recent trip with my girlfriends i cried to my best friend about how i missed my dad and she said ‘that’s ok.’ so simple. and so oddly liberating. i don’t think she knows how her two simple words impacted me…giving me permission to feel how i feel. even when it doesn’t feel appropriate.

so it’s sunday, i miss my dad. and i’ve learned that there is no right way or wrong way to grieve, there is only your way, and there is my way.