Well, it's that time of year again. The anniversary of my dad's motorcycle accident. On May 7th, I will have been graduated from college for six years and one day--I always knew college graduation was going to be a milestone in my life, but in actuality, I only enjoyed being an allumna for about 15 hours. I sat around drinking strawberry Margarita's with my best friend Tash in our apartment when we got the call. "M, could you put Tash on the phone?" It was strange, I had known Tash's mother my entire life, she didn't want to make small talk with me? True, she had just seen me the day before in all my cap and gown glory...but gosh!

And I'll never forget Tash looking at me and saying, "M, we gotta go home." We thought it was bad for the first fifteen minutes of the drive, then we convinced ourselves that our conniving families had thrown us a joint surprise graduation party since we grew up and lived next door to each other. We laughed and sang the whole way, my laugh however, wasn't completely genuine and I don't think hers was either. I looked down at myself and realized that I was wearing a tank top with no bra, a pair of shorts and I had neglected to put on my flip flops...I had already put myself on auto-pilot, a feeling that I would be experiencing often for the next year...going through the motions, half heartedly and not at all well.

It came to pass that I was correct. Something bad had happened. I looked at the weeping people holding my mother through the bay window as we pulled up in the driveway. I got out of the car and fainted. I knew then, that my father was dead and that nothing would ever be the same again.

I try to keep my dad alive in my funny stories, because we have so many great tales...because we (as a family) were tight. In fact, we called ourselves "a family unit" and we conducted our lives that way, as a unit, hoping to better all our situations together. I've let go of our ugly fights; knowing that we had them and often went months without speaking to one another is enough for me. I'm not rewriting history, I just cherish the fact that he was my dad, my hero. My dad saved my neck so many times, particularly when he should've just let me "learn the hard way" as he growled to me after rescuing me. He tried to show me my potential often as well, saying, "You do know that you're a beautiful girl with so much heart right, you can and should achieve anything you want? You're going to do great things" but that just bounces off a teen girl's ears and she still thinks that she's the ugliest girl out there, and she doesn't care if she's going to do great things or not.

It's hard. It's hard knowing that the one person that you need the most, can't be there for you...and there's always a part of you that will forever need him. I need him to bounce ideas off of, I need him to help me plan wild adventures with my life (he was always urging me to live..."live goddammit...live like it's going to be taken away from you tomorrow" his words echo loudly in my ears), I need his chest to cry on...to curl up on his lap--even at the age of 23 I wrapped my arms around his neck and sobbed--it was acceptable to the ex Marine, as long as I solved the problem on my own and stopped my "baby tears" before leaving the house. The family could see the weakness but no one else (he'd be pretty pissed at me lately...I've been crying up a storm).

There comes a time when everyone has to go it alone and let go of all the safeguards in their lives to really grow up and be the person they're supposed to be. My safeguard was taken from me, but I often question myself, "Who would I be, if my dad was still here..." I definitely wouldn't be as good of a person. When he died, I had to start taking care of my mom (whom, if I fell to pieces, she broke entirely)...I had to be entirely selfless (something I was unable to do before that), I had to make sacrifices (something I was unwilling to do before) and I had to heal myself (rather than let "daddy fix" it)...but sometimes I miss all that.

I miss complete acceptance. I miss someone knowing me inside and out (even to the point of frustrating accuracy). I miss my dad, who thought I was a beautiful person on the inside...even though I wasn't all that beautiful at the time and I was fairly flawed--he saw potential and he nurtured it. I miss having one person who I could count on for advice, without the fear of judgement. I miss him. My dad is my missing piece. A part of my innocence lost. A part of my heart gone. It's a wound that will never heal and in fact, as his face fades from my mind, it grows deeper...and yet, this weekend...I'm going to try not to mourn, but to remember all the things that made him wonderful to me, to my mother and to my closest friends. Of course, I wish he were here...but I will appreciate what he has given me, and what he has forced me to become.