Papa Mark Day
Today was a good day. I took a leap. I opened up. I feel better.
I was so afraid to publish the last post, but after I did, my friends and family showed me such beautiful love and support. I began to feel less afraid.
I spent the day listening to the playlist those closest to him put together shortly after his passing.
Then, I took a big step in my healing journey: I watched the memorial video we made for my dad’s celebration of life service. It’s been 5 years of angelversaries, and I couldn’t bring myself to watch it with them until today. It was hard. I was anxious. I didn’t want to break down in front of them. I didn’t though. I talked to them about the pictures and memories, and I cried a little, but they got to really meet him today.
I regret not showing them sooner, but that’s the thing when living with grief—it’s so tricky to navigate, and you definitely have no control over that process. Even though this control freak has tried to for far too long.
After watching the video, my oldest said July 7th will be Papa Mark Day. I couldn’t agree more, we’ll watch the video and do things to honor him. We went to Two Bros BBQ, one of my dad’s favs, then we went for a walk in the park. It was perfect. My heart is healing.
Special shout out to these songs for getting me through today:
Suzanna Choffel’s Go Forth and Hello Goodbye
Delta Rae’s Dance in the Graveyard
Kacey Musgraves’ The Architect
and of course…
Taylor Swift’s I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
Grammar and clarity assistance was provided by ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI.