Like crazy...

Missing him so much today.

Sometimes it just gets me...remembering the time he came to Arizona and we hiked to Hole in the Rock...and he of course wanted to "see if he could get down a new way." By the time he did so, he had an audience at the top and a daughter at the bottom who just wanted both of his feet back on the same ground she was standing on. It wasn't even a "real" mountain...still he managed to find a way to find the most exciting/dangerous way down. That's so him.

While he was here there was a monsoon and we watched as the temperature dropped quickly on my car's digital gauge as the rain fell and then warmed up just as fast right after. He was amazed at how much rain fell and how quickly the temperature changed and being there with him in that rainstorm made me appreciate the monsoons even more than I already had from then on. 

The smallest details get me...found this collage of pictures I made after my trip home in July last year...the little one in the middle of him on the 4-wheeler still makes me laugh. He was attempting to ride up something both steep AND snowy. When it didn't work and he backed down...he looked at me and laughed that unforgettable laugh that always seemed to say "Well, guess that's not happening." If you know my dad very well, you know the laugh...usually accompanied by a slight shoulder shrug.  I bet Rand's seen it more than once snowmobiling with dad. I feel like it's etched into my brain...and I always want it to be. I love that laugh. Its one of the million little things about him that makes me laugh and then sigh...

Small things catch my breath and light up my heart with an ache that is as painful as it is beautiful. I told someone recently through my tears "this is the luckiest way to do grief"...I am so grateful that there is so much happiness in my grief. 

I think I speak for many of us when I say our hearts ache and grieve in a way that is deep, raw and real...yet with sorrow that is full of gratitude, peace and laughter.

I never knew laughter and sorrow could be in the same tears...but mine are full of both. I never cry without also having something to laugh about. Even remembering some of the scariest and hardest moments in the hospital and since, I can imagine what he would say...in every moment he always had a way to make everything okay.

I love you dad. Can't even imagine what mountains you've found to climb and conquer by now... 

Miss you like crazy. Every day.