My dad died a little over two years ago. It certainly doesn't get better with time, but I suppose it gets a bit easier. I no longer have to leave classes crying on a daily basis. I can now smile and laugh and enjoy fun times with my friends without the guilt of being happy in a world where my dad isn't. I am starting to be able to look back on all the adventures he and I had together with fondness and joy rather than only heartwrenching and unbarable pain. I still can't believe he's gone forever. It still doesn't feel real at times. Every now and then I'll have a dream that he is still there with me, that life is normal, and I'll wake up and expect to find him in the basement reading or writing emails.

Being away from home and at college for the first time is hard as well. Some days it's good, because I don't have to constantly be reminded of his absence in my house by empty drawers. Other days, its hard, because he doen't exist in my new city the way he exists in my old one. I can't walk by parks and remember him pushing me on the swings there. I can't bike to bakeries and remember him buying me a treat after a long ride together. I can't look at mountains and remember how we dreamed of one day climbing them side by side. It's so much harder to feel his presence in my new house. Going home is hard too becasue when I enter the front door I can feel the wave of Dad hit me head on. I have so many new friends at college that my dad will never meet. I've done so many hikes that I'll never get to take him on. I have exciting adventure stories that I'll never get the chance to share with him. Here I am, finding out so much more about myself and my passions, becoming the person that I am destined to become, and my dad will never get to see how I've grown and matured and bloomed. I want him to know everything that's going on in my life and to be excited for me and proud of me, and it hurts that he never will. I feel selfish for admitting this, but it truly breaks my heart. I also can't come to terms with the fact that he won't be at my wedding, that he'll never meet my children when I decide to have them, that he won't be a part of my adult life in anyway. Losing him while I was still a teenager meant that I never really got the chance to know him as more than a dad. I wish I could learn so much more about his past, hear stories from when he was in college and ask his advice on being a student and being an adult and having a job and making new friends and balancing my passions with paying rent and taking classes. I want to know everything about him, and it really sucks that there is so much I will never know. 

I now know that I can, in fact, go on without my dad in my life, but that doen't change the fact that it is incredibly challenging and will continue to be so. I often still question how I will make it without his guiding hand, and I am still afraid that I won't be able to because he isn't here. All I can do is keep building and strengthening bonds with the rest of my family, remembering the amazing adventures I've had with my dad and be grateful for them, and continue to strive to make him proud everyday for the rest of my life.