Not a single day goes by...

My father loved watching and listening to nature, especially the small birds. And they seemed to be equally interested in him. Every time I see a small bird, I think that if we reincarnate my Dad would be a bird.

...without thinking about the fact that my father is not with us anymore. I thought the hardest thing would be to go through the funeral, but I was so wrong. It was almost easy compared to what is to come - learning to live without him. He has always been there as a part of my life that I always took for granted. I guess that's normal.

I remember the first time I spoke with Dad about death and realised it would happen to everybody - even my parents - I was about 4 or 5 years old. I was so sad and worried and my father told me that I didn't have to worry about now or for many many years to come. "When you are 80 years old - an old lady with a cane - I will still be here 100 years old". Those words calmed me down and I stopped worrying, because I knew that what Mom and Dad said was always right. Those words have stayed with me since then and in some way I always though of them as some sort of promise from my Dad's side that he wouldn't pass away before reaching 100 years of age. Of course, as I got older, I started to understand how unrealistic it was. Very few people live until they are 100, but I still thought... "maybe" in the back f my mind. And now that this tragedy happened, I realised how much comfort I actually took in holding my Dad to his "promise" and almost felt fooled. He didn't keep his promise. Me, an almost 30 year old woman, on some level still believed my Dad would reach 100 years of age... The 5 year old egocentric me is still inside me. I just had no idea how big that part was until this happened.

Saknar dig så mycket, Pappa.