Hi Dad, It's Me...

It's been three months since I've seen you.

Hard to believe, yet the world keeps on turning, sometimes unfairly. The changing of the seasons is bittersweet, because it's one more reminder that life continues without you.

Three months seems like an eternity.

That's three months since I've walked into your home and found you sitting with your feet up on a footrest, eating from a can of Pringles potato chips.

Three months since I've been able to run the palm of my hand over the "peach fuzz" you had left for hair.

Three months since I've been able to tease you about wearing your white socks pulled up to your calves. Yet you wore them anyway.

Three months since you have walked through the room while pulling up your pants that always seemed to be falling down.

Three months since you've sat next to me at one of Griffin's ballgames, sipping a cup of McDonald's coffee with cream and sweetener. By the way, I drink mine the same way.

Three months since I've hugged you, taking in the scent of your cigars and Head and Shoulders shampoo. You've used that shampoo since I was little. Somehow, I miss it.

Trying to focus on the positive, some good things have happened during the last three months that you have been gone.

Griffin got the game ball in basketball, Saturday. You would have been so proud.

The boys now know all of the words to "Daddy's Little Girl," and ask for "Papaw's song" in the car. That makes me smile.

Hayden now dresses himself, though his underwear is usually on backwards.

They now tease Mamaw that they will "put her in the trash can...and put the lid on it," just like you used to say to them. It makes them giggle.

Griffin wrote his Veteran's Day letter to you, then called me in Nashville to read it over the phone. He told me he saw your picture in your Army uniform at the funeral.

I recently overheard Hayden telling someone while pointing at a star in the sky, "Look, there's my Papaw Mike." The kids talk about you daily.

And finally, three months since I've been able to call and ask for advice. Didn't matter if it was how to fix something, or kid-related, you knew the answer.

We miss you.