Here I have an itch to scratch. In my desire to express myself, socializing is inadequate. Music is inadequate.. It is the darkest dark feelings dread. Nameless.

Dad died two weeks ago today. It was harder hitting than I could imagine. The backdrop was Heahter’s dad, who only weeks ago also died. I tried to be supportive, probably was. Hard to say. Words are difficult to find in such situations: especially when Heather does not believe in God.

“That’s not my father,” she repeated, staring at the box of ashes.

This shook another part of me awake, realizing her dad is now two. A box of ashes, and his soul. It came out clumsily, something like “He’s there, but he’s also everywhere.”

As Dad’s imminent death lingered, and he was shuffled from his house to the hospital, to assisted living, back to the hospital, to hospice, his life unwound as Michael and Sharon and I united for the first time in my adult life.

Dad was a rock in each of our lives. Michael and Sharon had already lost their mother long ago, and to this day probably can’t figure out how to fill the hole that she left in their burgeoning toddler hearts. Dad had been miserable, and—but for my mom’s insistence in their workplace that he say, “Hi,”, or, “Good morning, “ Dad would have lived in the permanent dusk of death. I would be somewhere else, or nowhere.

Who can say what shape Dad’s love has assumed? Certainly he carried on, Michael and Sharon had a stepmother. And, soon enough, a baby brother. Me.

What hardships we had, watching a somewhat normal suburban life of relative emotional leisure dissolve in front of our burgeoning minds. My mother was not their mother, and she was jealous of their mother’s memory. Ultimately, of the love Dad, Michael, and Sharon shared of her.

This was the defining mood of my childhood home. My previous therapist, in her progressive wisdom, reduced this to a “sex negative” household. A pronouncement that rang somewhat true while simultaneously leaving me in a dead end of self loathing.

I have never felt this fear and loneliness. I so loved that man. Heather can only be kind, but cannot solve this riddle I am ensconced in. I can only express what I’m feeling. Now more than ever, moments of joy are tainted. I pray for God’s merciful love. Writing this is His mercy. Being moved to start journaling once again is, above all things, frightening.

Reading old journal entries is painful, even as I got better and better at writing. A pyrrhic victory of sorts.

And yet, I am so moved. I feel His will compelling me, moving me forward. I feel the disappointment of my sins, feel repentance, embrace love the best way I can with the best raw ingredients of my life.

There is hope. There is no permanence except the Truth, and it is equally comforting and terrifying. I am called on. I remember my father’s face. I remember the amazement when, in his final days, he told me how proud he was of my “titanium spine,” when I took public transportation every single day for two years. A 3-hour commute. Because I did not let my DUI undo me. Aurora and I biked everywhere on the weekend. I bought one back-pack worth of groceries each Saturday.

This acknowledgement from Dad was life altering. It was its own mercy; surely that time period for me was the darkest. I was so down on myself. I was horrified. It felt infinite. And Dad was proud of my bravery.

I will miss him. I love him. He is everywhere.