Rest In Love, Daddy
For those of you who may follow my public Instagram page, you may have seen my post about the passing of my father. A loss that has fractured my soul to the core. I’m left trying to steady myself; fully knowing that even though I held his hand until the very end, it still cannot be ‘real’. So much of who I am is because of the love and humanity my father led with. Simply put, he was ‘the best’. He prioritized the things that truly matter even when they were inconvenient or came at his expense. And he did it without ever making mention of it. He was good to the core. He was funny and mischievous.
He was as much of a ‘guy’s guy’ as he was one of the ‘girl’s girl’. He was a complete feminist and he raised me to believe my wildest dreams could come true. With hard work, kindness, and humility...anything was possible. Life wasn’t always going to be easy. Ambition was always applauded, but never at the expense of deep gratitude for our blessings. I share all of this with you at The Happy Place for many reasons. Mostly because, my Dad WAS and still IS an enormous piece of the picture that makes up my Happy Place. But also because my dad was a dreamer. We spent countless hours talking about what this destination meant to me, my plans for the future, and how it was, in many ways, my form of activism. My way of sprinkling some goodness into a world that needs it now more than ever.
We laughed about not taking myself too seriously, but we often talked about how much life can change when you shift focus and concentrate on the things that bring you joy. For him it was his career in medicine, his family, his friends, and my beautiful mother. His sense of responsibility to all of those things are what inspired him. I must admit, my happy place is almost exactly the same. And I don’t take for granted for a second that I get to share all of that with you. Over the past 5 weeks, the fear for my dad’s life and the devastation of his unexpected passing has left me wondering if I would ever feel inclined to write in a place that was born from happiness. It seemed impossible. I felt tapped. Like I would never be able to connect to the creative parts of my heart that seemed to have poured out of me until this moment. But today I woke up and sat down and decided to write. To honestly share that a huge part of my Happy Place has moved on from this earth and I’m barely coping with depths of this sorrow. My heart is heavier than I ever could have imagined, but in the distance I hear his voice. Reminding me of the importance of savoring life and all of its beautiful blessings. Holding space to allow me to grieve. But pushing me to continue. There will never be a day where I won’t miss my father, but I won’t stop honoring his memory and sifting through the sadness to breathe life into this new phase of our connection. The memories will live on...because they truly were the happiest. His legacy will continue to shape the tiny squares that you see here. I’m sure there will be harder days than others, but often times the things that bring you the greatest joy can bring you to your knees. Losing my dad has done just that. But today was the first day in weeks I felt inspired...and it feels good...dare I say happy? Rest In love, daddy. Here’s to dreaming about the goodness.
Xx,
Jo