I'm Sorry Dad

Dear Dad,

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for not trusting you,

I'm sorry for not realizing how much you truly cared about me.

I'm sorry I never got to show just how much I loved you.

I'm sorry if you left this earth thinking that I hated you.

I don't.

I'm sorry I didn't reach out to you sooner,

And I'm sorry I never gave you the time of day.

You really meant the world to me and all I ever wanted was to have a relationship with you.

I wish I had gotten more time with you.

But the year I had was wonderful.

I'm sorry that I shut you out for 17 years,

I never realized you wanted to get to know me.

After hearing how often you talked about me to your family it opened my eyes.

I hardly knew you, and yet, you were the best dad in the entire world.

I loved when you would bring home chicken tenders for me every Tuesday with a lot of ranch and a tiny bit of hot sauce.

I loved watching wrestling with you even though I thought it was extremely stupid and boring.

You promised me that you would stop smoking because you knew I hated the smell.

Now that you’re gone I’m glad you didn’t.

The smell of your smoke on your batman blanket is the only thing keeping me together.

I keep waiting for you to walk through the doors on Tuesday nights around 8:43.

You would always burst in holding my chicken tenders and your hot wings with a big grin on your face, and you would always say,

“Here’s your chicken Bugga.”

To know I’ll never get to hear your voice again really sucks.

All I wanted to do was make you proud, and I know you can’t be here to show me how proud you truly are,

But deep down in my heart I know that you are overly proud of me.

It breaks my heart knowing you won’t get to see me in my prom dress or see me graduate.

You’ll never be able to walk me down the aisle when I get married or have a father daughter dance.

You’ll never get to meet your grandchildren and they’ll never get to meet you,

However they will get to hear all the stories about how their Poppy was really Batman and they’ll know just how great of a person you actually were.

I know I will never stop missing you and I am thankful to this day that I got to be by your side at the very end of it all.

I will never forget the day in the hospital when it was Jessie, Jennifer, and I and you counted us off

“One, two, three.”

Then you looked at my mom and said

“Look Amy, all three of my girls are here.”

And the tears slowly and silently rolled down all of our faces because we all knew we would never have the five of us in the same room ever again.

I love you so much dad and I want you to know that.

I may have had a bad way of showing it but I never stopped caring about you and I never will.

Love you forever,

               Your little bugga Hannah