There once was a man.
His sole purpose in life was to put antiseptic and bandages on my wounds.
He read me a stories and gave each character a funny voice.
He took me wherever I wanted to go, and also, everywhere he'd ever wanted to show me.
He showed me the past, like
individual bricks on a wall,
and built me up to the roof
of a house.
Staring at stars and constellations and swirling dreams.
We played and conversed like equals,
alternating from being children to grownups, together.
We went to baseball games and aquariums and museums and beaches and parks and forests.
I danced on his toes, and sprouted his curly locks from my own head.

And when he died, I died, too.

There was nothing left for many years, until I held my own child.
My daughter,
who looks so much like my dad,
sometimes it hurts to see
the similarities.
The curl in her hair, the stars in her eyes, the magic in her shadow,
And it almost makes me feel like
Maybe he didn't leave me without love.
Maybe I didn't perish along with him.
Maybe he is still alive in me and in
the funny way my little girl scrunches up her nose when she giggles.
Or her preference of squash to green beans.
Maybe the world didn't end with my dad.
Maybe I would feel even sadder that she won't know him if I wasn't too busy soaking in her every moment like my father did mine.

And, one day I'll tell her,
"Eliza June, I once knew the most incredible man.
And he would have loved
to hear you call him,
'Grand Dad.'"