I miss you Daddy...

I am a college graduate.

Though official in January, my commencement ceremony is Today.

 21 years to the day that my father passed away…

I last spoke to father on May 16, 1994. 

I was living in upstate NY and had discovered a month or two before I was graduating High School a year early. 

My Dad was still in Fla. 

The last five months of his life we lived separately for reasons I won’t get into here. Suffice it to say, I was 16 turning 17 at that time. 

Our last conversation was about my High School graduation. I asked him if he was coming up.

He asked if I wanted him there.

I said of course.

He said that then he’d be there no matter what.

We talked a little more. We made plans for me to move back home after graduation.

We talked about my graduating high school early, and how he worried I was missing out not having a Senior year...

It was a nice call. I felt close to him for the first time since those teenage hormones kicked in...

I was the Daddy's girl I'd always been...

My final words to him were, “I love you.”

The next day my Dad died.

A month later I graduated High School.

I kept seeing him arrive…then remembering that was impossible.

So…my college commencement ceremony is here, 21 years later.

To the day.

I am choosing to believe that is more than coincidence. 

That my Dad is keeping his promise.

That this conjunction of events is him telling me he’s coming to my graduation.

I miss you Dad.

And I love you.

And I did it..

It only took me 21 years..