I wasn’t sad on father’s day. I wasn’t sad during this entire weekend. When I really sit and think about things - the loss of my dad really hasn’t changed my day to day life. I still get up in the morning, go to work, work, and then come back to work and then get ready for bed without him. He was never a factor in my day to day life.

We didn’t have daily, weekly, or monthly phone calls.

I never saw him.

On father’s day or his birthday (whatever day that is)… I never thought about him. We celebrated my brother, my grandfather and all of the other single mom’s who had to juggle the role of mom and dad like my mother and aunt.

The only thing that has changed in my life, since my father’s death, is the realization that my relationship with him will always be like this. There’s no midnight hope that one day we’ll reconnect and get to know each other - our relationship will forever be as he left it -estranged.

And now dead.

So yeah, I didn’t cry on father’s day. I didn’t cry this entire weekend or during the week, but I thought about him alot, and I’ve been telling more and more people about his death.

I told a teammate that I lost someone in May - she was so surprised. She said that I always seemed so peppy…. which was weird because I felt like I was in an awful mood and that everyone noticed - and I took multiple days off.

At the Juneteenth BBQ - I told a coworker that this was the first Father’s day without my father.. It doesn’t ring true. I’ve never spent a father’s day with him, but I guess it was the first father’s day where he was no longer breathing.

I told the training instructor today before the training after she mentioned that she lost her dad at 11, I told her that I lost mine last month.

I said all of this with a straight face - without a hint of tears….

But as I sit here at my kitchen table, while waiting for dinner to be ready, there’s this ever present tightness in my chest and fuzziness in my head that I can’t shake. It’s been with me for days.

But I’m fine. I swear I am.

Olivia