Sending You

Dear Dad,
I’m in this huge office with tiny courage. You should see me. Little ole me, Head Mucky Muck, behind a gigantic desk. It’s 72″ wide. 11″ more than I am tall when I don’t slouch. How I sleep curled up I could slumber on it with room to spare. People smile when they see me here. Like I’m playing professional or something. Big desk, little girl. I’ve painted blue and green, green and blue. I seem to be drawn to ocean colors according to crayons. They don’t know the sea as well as you.
I’ve taken to talking to myself lately. Especially in early mornings when the light of day is still hours away. I pretend you are on the other end of a disconnected phone line, or only a stamp away. I still hear you in my sleep. I haven’t lost your voice but I’m starting to forget where your life left off and ours kept going.
D took this picture of this picture of us. You and Me. Me and You. Do you even know D? They have been a couple for so long I’m forgetting start and end dates. When they started being thought of as together and when you, well, when you ended. I know you don’t know my other half. I’m betting you wouldn’t have liked him at the start. I didn’t. In the end you would. He grows on you until you can’t imagine a single second without his Being being beside you. Just being. He saves my sanity. Really. He puts it away for when I need it again. Stores it up in cases of collapse and utter emergency. There have been some. You would love him once you see how wonderful I am with him. I’m behind this big, huge, honking desk because of him. Head Mucky Muck.
It’s stupid to say I miss you. Because that’s pointing out the obvious. Today, today your advice in the shape of a shell went to work with me. Pale purple and white and worn smooth from my thumb. Your words will sit in this office. Stupid stuff like, “lay off the Turbo.” Sage stuff like, “love what you do, do what you love.”

I’m working on it, dad.
Love,
me