Happy Birthday, Dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You didn\u2019t get older, but I did, and I have carried you with me for forty-one years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was eleven when you left, way too young to understand what it meant to lose a father, only old enough to feel the sudden absence of your voice, your presence, your steadiness, and most importantly, your fun and shenanigans. You were only thirty. I didn\u2019t yet know that grief doesn\u2019t disappear\u2026it waits until we have the language and the safety to feel it fully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve learned that your death and the loss of you from my life are something I will never get over. And that\u2019s okay, because my feelings haven\u2019t lessened; they\u2019ve changed shape over time. Grief doesn\u2019t shrink the loss; it expands the contrast, I have come to understand. Each year makes clearer the age you never reached, the moments you never saw, and the woman I became without you. That widening gap is why birthdays can feel especially sharp. It\u2019s not the absence that grows; it\u2019s the awareness of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My love keeps reaching forward, even when time does not. You are eternally thirty, but I am still becoming. I carry you, your spirit, and your love through it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You are 71 today. Forever young and always with me. XO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Happy Birthday, Dad. You didn\u2019t get older, but I did, and I have carried you with me for forty-one years. I was eleven when you left, way too young to understand what it meant to lose a father, only old enough to feel the sudden absence of your voice, your presence, your steadiness, and most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,48,46,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-death","category-growth","category-healing","category-reflection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1346,"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1344\/revisions\/1346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}