I still can't believe it's been 5 months since my dad passed.  I find myself still completely forgetting everything that has happened and going about my day as if all is well. Busy at work, keeps my brain busy and then it hits me that he's gone.  For weeks go by and I'm thinking he's still here.  But he's not. The severe pain is gone and I'm shocked that it seems to have faded so quickly.  The black pain seems to be gone, but now there's some mixed in with a bit of white... a light at the end of the tunnel somehow.  Now it's just sadness mixed with a bit of happy memories.  But I no longer feel as if I'm sleep walking through life.  Life seems to be back to the way it was before.  What I hate are the holidays.  The holidays he always put together and planned.  My birthday is coming on the 3rd and I can't bring myself to celebrate, because I just don't feel like it. Celebrate what? Everything he would have done, with a cake, flowers, cards, gifts is no longer. Gone.  Wiped away.  So far, other holidays have been fine because it's for someone else, mother's day, etc and I can do all he did in his place. But now it's me and I just want it to be done and over with.  Celebrating my first birthday without him feels like it's going to kill me. God if my birthday is like this, how the hell am I going to get through thanksgiving, christmas?  i wish I could just throw away all the holidays for the next year and just forget them.