10/14/2025
I’ve always been terrible with dates. Words I remember, but numbers don’t stick in my brain.
Two years ago today, my dad died, and I think even if I didn’t look at the calendar, my body would just know. It knows not just that it’s October 14, but it remembers exactly how it felt when I said goodbye to him.
I’m spending today at the Wee Stuart Cottage, the tiny place we brought to life as his was ending. The place he had only seen in photos. It’s where I keep his things. His jacket by the door, the tartan blanket and suitcase he brought from Scotland in 1961, his oil paintings and Stuart crystal collection.
I’m wearing his (itchy) beige argyle sweater from Glasgow. I’ll drink tea from his mug with all the Scottish castles on it, and later, I’ll pour some Oban Whisky and watch his memorial video, and sit in the space that holds his treasures but never held him: my treasure.
People say grief fades with time, but I don’t think that’s true. I think it settles. I think it becomes less of a scary stranger and more of a familiar companion. That part may get easier. But what doesn’t get easier is how his absence touches moments I didn’t know would feel so empty without him. And how much further away he feels as time goes by.
But I’m getting so much better at finding him.
And today, I will.
❤️
