Today I did something that I had been putting off for a very long time.  I went through my dad’s work shop.  Since he died almost three years ago I had not been able to set foot in there for fear of breaking down and ripping open the wounds that still seem so raw and fresh.

Stepping in the door I was immediately flooded with emotion and wanted to just turn away and close the door.  Even after three years it is difficult for me to believe that he is really gone.  How is it possible for someone to be so alive in my heart and so absent from this earth?

I was gathering tools and items that I thought I could use and pass down to his grandson one day I thought of all the times we had stood together in that shop.  Not nearly as many times as he and my brother Tony did but we made lots of great memories in there.

On one side of the garage was my grandfathers old 1946 Cub Farmall tractor.  Some of the tools I was gathering had been in our family for generations.  They are just old grimy wrenches and assorted items but knowing that my grandfather and my father has both touched and used them made them priceless to me.

In the corner on a table were two small red vices.  These were the ones he used to hold my black flip flops together when her Gorilla glued them for me the summer before he died.  He was my go to guy for anything that needed to be fixed.  He was my go to guy for everything. He was hands down my very best friend.

I continue to wonder every day how there can possibly still be a world without my father in it.  But I know he would want me to be happy and move forward. I try every day to live a life that would make him proud and that would “tickle him to death”.

This is one girl that loved her daddy!