Dear Dad,

This month marks five years since you’ve been gone. It’s strange to me how five years can sometimes seem like such a long time, and other days feel like just yesterday. How the pain and grief sometimes feels so fresh, and other times like an old memory. I knew the pain would be something I’d always have to deal with, but what I did not expect was to constantly feel frustration. I’m frustrated that there is one less person in my kids’ lives that loves them so much, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m frustrated that I lost a whole side of my extended family when I lost you. The pain of the day you died and the day of your funeral has dulled, but the frustration never goes away.

I hope you know how much I miss you. I still hear Fishing in the Dark on the radio and think about you. I look in my babies blue eyes and wonder how much of that blue came from you. I stand in the middle of my pasture at the house I bought and think about how happy you’d be for me. I hope you don’t mind that I take a drive up Logan canyon to “see” you, because I can’t bring myself to go to that cemetery since the day we buried you. I hope that you see me and my family and are proud of what I’ve done with my life. I hope that someday if I have a little girl she looks up to her dad as much as I did you.

Love you.