Dreading the day you died, again.

Each year as your birthday approaches,

arrives, and passes I feel thankful. Prepared.

April is full of life and poetry and plans.

Then May appears and the dread sits in.

I count it down, twenty eight, twenty seven

...fifteen, fourteen days until you die again.

The mental preparation takes a back seat

to remembering what I choose to forget

every other day except for May.

Sometimes, I try to paint you as absent anyway.

Other times you are a hero, Superman,

and the funniest person I have ever known.

I make jokes at work that I need attention

because my father never loved me

and I get a good laugh from my heart ache

but we both know how I stood at your wake

and told the story of a man who loved

with all of him but never knew how much

was enough or how to say such a thing.

I love you. 

It really is that simple, Dad. 

I am sorry it was so hard for you.