In my mind, there's a black line that divides time, right around 7AM on February 24th.  Before the line, Dad was alive and there was hope, then the line, when everything changed in a second.  After the line, I struggle to make sense of a world without my best person.  

There are ok days and bad days.  Days where I go to lie in bed at 3pm like a small child, wanting my Dad.  Days where I go about my business but think about him a lot.  Days where nothing seems to matter and I question everything.  Answers are slow.

One thing that I do think about a lot is that although I shared a lot of things with Dad, I wasn't a boy.  My brothers weren't into the same things Dad was, other than sport.  I'm happy, though, that Ian came along and shared those same things with Dad (music, walking, paying attention to people, woodworking, loving to tell stories...) and they had a special relationship.  Like a second chance, an extra unexpected person who comes along, for each of them, and redecorates their life (to quote that terrible Kenny Rogers song).  I sent Ian back the letters he had sent Dad over the last ten years, they were right on top of Dad's dresser drawer, on top of more recent things, suggesting that he had re-read them recently.  

I'm trying not to smoke.  I'm trying to remember why I'm doing the stuff.  I'm trying.