The hardest part for me about losing my dad is that I missed him for a long time even before he died.
It had been ten months since I'd even seen him. I had been calling him and leaving messages, trying to make plans with him, but he never called me back.
The only way I knew he was even still alive at the time was through my sisters.
I just kept trying, and then one day I get a phone call saying that he's dead.
That he shot himself.
That I'll never get that call back from him. That those plans I wanted to make with him would never be made.
It's like I'm waiting forever to get that call from him, and I'm never going to get it.
I can't even explain how much that breaks my heart.
I know that wasn't his intention.
That he wasn't avoiding me because he didn't love me.
It was because he was hurting so much and he didn't want me to feel it, too.
But honestly, I would have rather had him call me crying every day.
To tell me how sad he was.
It hurts me more that he didn't tell me.
That he didn't let me try to help.
And I'm not saying I would have been able to help him.
But I wish he would have let me try.
I just feel like I didn't know him at all during the last months he spent on this earth, and I wish he had given me the chance.