My dad and I are very different. He likes to play golf, watch football and eat popcorn. I like to go shopping, hang out with friends and eat sushi.
With all of the things that make us different, come the things that we have in common. He's stubborn and has a bad attitude and so do I. He likes to play on his phone a lot and so do I. He lost his dad at 18 and so did I.
May 20, 2016, my dad left home to go home.
My dad was so many things to so many people: a son, a husband, a brother, a father, an uncle, a cousin, a friend and to some, a saving grace.
He wasn't always the nicest guy and sometimes not the happiest, but he was the most loving man I've ever met. He loved his family unconditionally regardless of how often or how well he showed it.
He was a perfectionist when teaching anyone how to do anything, checking and double-checking his work before he would call it a day. He cut the grass until every blade was the same size even if it meant cutting it two or three times. And he always got mad at people who made stupid mistakes on the simplest tasks. He was never careless.
He taught me how to ride a bike. He taught me how to back park and how to jump a car. He taught me to be responsible (even if I'm not all the time). And he tried to teach me how to take a joke (which I still can't do very well).
When I was born, my ears were way bigger than my head, so my dad nicknamed me Yoda. He used to tell me that all he had to do was paint me green and I would look like Yoda's twin. This was the first of many things he did to "mess" with me.
Growing up, I thought my dad favored my sisters because they were athletic and I wasn't. He would spend so much of his time watching their games or going to their practices or batting/golfing lessons. I felt like he didn't even notice me because I don't have an athletic bone in my body.
I thought this until my junior year of high school. I was a cheerleader for all four years. My dad tried to make it to as many football games as he could just to watch me cheer (of course he watched the game as well). And then my senior year, he only missed the away games. All away games except when we made it to the first round of playoffs and had to drive six hours down south in the cold, cold weather. He sat in the stands to watch us lose and still said "at least you cheered well" when I went running up to him.
It still wasn't in that moment that I realized how much he actually loved me.
It was when it was too late, rethinking every memory I could think of with him in it. It was when I found out that he wasn't coming home.
My dad and I were starting to get close. He became my best friend. And then just like that, he was ripped from my grasp. Just like that, he was taken from me. It doesn't seem fair that I lost my dad at 18. It doesn't seem fair that he won't be there when I graduate college or that I'll never get to experience him walking me down the aisle on my wedding day.
I don't know why this happened. I don't know what I'm going to do without him. All I know is that I have some amazing guardian angels watching over me. And I love knowing that he's one of them. God really has gained a truly incredible angel.
But daddy, don't forget, save a place for me.
