Trying something new...an open blog to Daniel

Daniel, you’ve been gone 3 years and 1 week.

And this is the first thing of significance I’ve written since then.

Not even sure that I feel ready to write this now (or ultimately how significant it will be)…but I’ve got to try something.

I had the idea last night, when I woke up from a dead sleep with a pounding heart and racing mind at 3am.  As I sat in the darkness, cuddling Gibbons as much as he would let me, I thought to myself I would give anything just to talk to you about my day.  To hear you commiserate over my sadness, rejoice at our moments of joy, and tell me that everything’s going to be just fine even when I don’t feel it will be.

So many things happen over the course of any given 24 hours that have my hand itching to grab a phone and call you on a Heavenly number I don’t have. 

So I decided to start a record…a written log of the things I would tell you had you not been taken from us so soon.  Maybe I’ll feel like you hear me.  Maybe even if I don’t feel that way, it’ll still make me feel better somehow.

What I’d want to tell you today is that your great-nephew, your namesake, turns 3 today.
And though you got to meet him in Heaven a full week before any of the rest of us, I wish Luca would have the joy of knowing his Uncle Daniel here on earth too.  Brie’s actually at his birthday party right now.

I couldn’t bring myself to go, even though I REALLY wanted to.

I find that much as I miss being a part of your family, (and as much as I love them as my own family), I can’t bring myself around there.  It doesn’t feel right without you.  I hear ghostly echoes of your laugh throughout your parents’ house…and sitting down for a family meal with your seat empty kills me.

So I stay away.  When I really don’t want to.

So Brie went tonight to celebrate the life that entered the world so shortly after you left it.
I can’t tell you what an amazingly beautiful, gifted, insightful child we somehow (perhaps accidentally) raised.  I’d love to take credit for how exceptional she is.  But I think as parents, we were just inordinately blessed by God.  I can’t take any responsibility for her resilience and strength.  She doesn’t know it…but ultimately, she’s the one holding me together.  You should be (and I know you are) SO proud of her.

I guess what I really wish I could tell you today is how much I still miss you.  I don’t suspect that will ever lessen or get any easier.  And I want you to know how very much I (and Brie and Gibbons) love you.  I’m sorry I didn’t value our time more while we had it.  I beat myself up over it every day.
I know if you could feel pain in Heaven, it would break your heart to see the grief from those of us who love you.  I’m still trying to navigate a world that doesn’t make much sense to me any more, and having to do it without my rock is much harder than I would have ever imagined.
In a lot of ways, 3 years and 1 week still feels like yesterday. 

I miss you.  And I love you.  And I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

x