The first....

This will be a year of firsts....the firsts without my dad.  Yesterday, was the first of the firsts....and it was my first birthday without my dad.  I'm not sure what to say about how I feel or how I got through it.  It's pretty much like everything else.  It's not what I want...but I have to go forward anyway.  I don't have a choice.  Not really.  I put one foot in front of the other because there are other people counting on me.  I put one foot in front of the other because bills still need to be paid.  I put one foot in front of the other because that's what my dad would have wanted me to do.  It's not what I want to do.

And yet....it is.  I know I have to go on living.  I know I need to lean into God because I'm not strong.  I know I hurt deep in my heart in ways I couldn't imagine.  I have to keep making a choice to live with something that I didn't choose.  But maybe that's part of a universal truth.  We have very little control of the world around us.  We can't control the situations in which we find ourselves.  But the only control we actually may have is over our own choices.  I know my dad would want me to make good choices.  And so in spite of feeling like I don't have a choice....I do.   And by choosing to continue to walk forward, I celebrate the choices my dad made, I celebrate the choices I'm allowed to make.  And so I choose to see more of the sweet in the bittersweet.  I've been telling my mom that we need to dwell in the good.  It is a choice.  Why it has to be the one that takes more effort is beyond me....but I guess that's just one more of life's silly jokes.

So it was a first yesterday....and a bunch more firsts are coming.  I'm not going lie to myself and say this is gonna be easy.  It's going to be hard....but I know I will get through it.  I have a new angel in heaven helping me celebrate.