Everyone tells me that the worse of things is over. And in a way they're right. The constant roller coaster ride of the hospital is over. The never ending journey of hopes; then despair.  Sometimes it's daily, sometimes it's hourly.  Now, it's done. I go home and drink as much as i can. Not to get drunk, but to just sleep. To finally sleep.  And I do. the next morning; I see you daddy standing next to my bed, watching me.  Out of the corner of my eye. You're here. I turn to see you and then you're gone. I realize that you're really gone.  I turn on the TV to drown out the sorrow in my pain, the pain that is about to knife my heart and on the tv is someone talking about how he had died and came back. And that it was so amazing, he almost didn't want to come back. Intense happiness, seeing loved ones that have passed, intense light... how amazing it was.  I wonder if you're trying to tell me something.

so I lie in bed and wait. Wait for the intense pain to hit.  It did when I lost my friend Cherie to cancer in college. I would wake up fine, happy, only to remember that she was gone and be surrounded in so much pain it was as if a knife cut through.  But not this time. It's intense, but not pain. Just amazing sadness.  A dark well. Silence. Loneliness. I feel it in every cell of my body.  I think I need to get ready to go to the hospital today to see you. Then I realize I don't. You're gone. 

Later that night i walk down the hall into the kitchen and out of the corner of my eye I see your chair and a shadow sitting in it. I know it's you.  I turn to look and the shadow is gone.  I take everything I can of yours, your pj's, socks, anything I can wear to feel you close by.  And a cherished teddy bear that is the softest  thing I've ever felt that I've had since I was little, i hug close and finally cry.  I'm your youngest daddy.. and I feel like I'm 3. I just lost my daddy. i cry all night long.  Please don't leave me daddy, please don't leave.