My father died seventeen years ago this week.
      Every day after that anniversary will tip the scale, because he will have been gone from my life longer than he was in it. How strange a thought is that?
      I lived seventeen years as his precious redheaded miracle baby. I lived seventeen years loving and hating him, laughing with him and arguing with him. Seventeen years of watching him drink and eat and smoke and slowly die, but at the same time, watching him try time and time again to change, to be better, to get healthier, to be stronger for us all.
      And I have lived seventeen years without him. Seventeen years without seeing his funny little grin when I made a snarky comment, without fixing him a glass of Black Velvet on ice, without his hugs, without the smell of English Leather in my nose, without the sound of his voice yelling “JOSEPHINE MARIE, get down here NOW!”. Seventeen years without my Daddy.
      I look into the mirror and I see him sometimes.
      I have his freckles, his pale complexion, his blue-green eyes, and his auburn hair. I am not his twin, his spitting image, but his features come through in my big, weird face.
      And I see him in my nephew, Malakai. It is very funny, because at first glance, that brown-eyed, brown-haired, dark-skinned (compared to Dad, anyway) little boy could not look any further from his Irish grandfather…. but there are similarities anyway. Sometimes, Evie has captured certain expressions in photos and I think – “Yup, that’s Geno’s grandkid”. He went through a period as a really small baby when the similarities were even stronger.
      In time, I wonder if my own children will remind me of him. Or if little Micah (coming in September!) will. I hope they do.
      I am not going to look back with regret or wonder again how different our lives would be if he had survived. I’ve speculated before and it isn’t healthy, not really. I prefer to believe that, in all things, there is a plan and that things happen as they must. If my life had not unfolded as it did, I would not have met and married Mark, and I would not give up a minute of our time together… never.
      I would not have a beautiful little nephew, a niece in Heaven, and a second nephew on the way. I would not have a brother-in-law who inspires greatness in my sister, and I would not be the woman I am today.
      So…
      For all the bad times, and all those days when an angsty teenager hated that man, I miss him so much now. So damned much. And I can’t believe that I will keep missing him for the rest of my days…longer without him, than I lived with him.

Note: Image is “Daddy’s Girl” by (Me!)