If you lost your Father, start here.

If you lost your Father, start here. If you never got to know him, start here. If you never got to be one... start here.

Today, we celebrate Father's Day. I can already smell the grills firing up as the neighborhood fills with families riding bikes or playing catch in their front yards. The sky was gray and full of rain clouds just yesterday, but not today. Today the sun is shining bright enough for a day spent fishing. It should be a beautiful day spent with the people you love, but some of us are spending another year missing what everyone else on earth seems to have today.

As a little girl, I knew Valentine's Day was hard for my Mom. I gave her extra hugs, got her flowers when I could, and hand-wrote her cards to make her smile. My grandfather passed away on Valentine's Day when my Mom was barely eighteen. He never got to see her become all that she has become since. He never got to meet her daughter. And when she speaks of him, her memories are that of a child cheering at a baseball game with her Dad, cracker jack pieces spilling out of her little, happy hands. When my Father passed away, I was in my thirties, but It made me feel like that little girl again. The one who hand-drew cards for her Mom and loved to feed the pelicans chips on the beach. Small and needing my Father for everything from wiping away tears to reaching the sink to brush my teeth. I am immensely thankful for all my time and memories with him. I am aware that others don't get all that I had, but it still stings to think of the years we have already missed and will continue to miss together.

There is no right time to lose a father. There are never enough memories. There will always be a longing for more beach days spent feeding pelicans and turning the same shade of caramel in the sun. There will never be enough baseball games with cracker jacks.

Some of you out there want nothing more than to be a Father to someone. To help them grow and learn and to laugh at them as they spill cracker jacks everywhere. To help with Math homework (as long as it's not common core). But life hasn't given you that blessing. I'm thinking of you today and all the ways that more good Dads could help shape more good humans.

If you're feeling lost or sad, that's ok. I get it. I feel it. You're not silly for missing something you never got to have, and you're not as alone as you think you are. Today can be a bit heavy, so take the time you need to feel it all and hold on tight to your loved ones, even if that's just your dog. As I write this, my dog is snoring louder than one would think possible for a ten-pound animal cuddled against me on the couch, and he has no idea just how soothing it feels, like a furry Xanax for the soul.