I don’t know when periods come back after birth.  I have a feeling I’m PMS.  Because I have no other way to explain how fragile I feel right now.  It’s not normal.  I look at the people I love, and I swear to God, I think, "You’re going to die one day.  You need to know how important you are, how much I love you, how I don’t want to ever lose you."  I’m thinking these things, dead thoughts about the living. 

I tried walking down our driveway, just to put some outgoing snail mail in our box, and I cried.  "It’s sunny now.  It’s a gorgeous day.  If my father were still here, he’d walk with us later.  We could all go for a walk together."  He’s on his way back to New York.  And it kills me.  I can’t stop crying.

"If it were me crying," Phil says, "you’d roll your eyes and tell me I’m a mamma’s boy."  And he’s a little bit right about that.  What is wrong with me?  (For once, don’t fucking answer that)  I wish he were still here.  I wish they were closer.  I wish I didn’t take life as seriously as I am today.  I know it will get easier, which in its own way makes me sad too. 

I hate feeling this fragile and needy.  "You need another hug, don’t you?" Phil asks.  And I just start crying, shaking my head "yes."  I feel like someone has died, but I’m alive with chances to tell them exactly how I feel.  Now that I have children, I realize there’s a next generation, and with that comes grandparents, and grandparents get old.  Grandparents die.  And that frightens me, this life without my father.  I don’t know how people bear it.  How you lose your best friend, the one who knows you better than anyone else in the world and validates your choices in it. And I know one day, when he’s no longer alive, I will think these same things, "how I wish you were here with me."  And I’ll imagine he’s watching over us, there on our walk, telling his jokes, and loving his family.