First of all, Happy Birth­day, USA !!!

And sec­ond … Really? It’s July 4^th already? When did half the year slip away? It’s been a crazy cou­ple of months here in Apron­Strings­Land. Busy with work, busy with trav­el­ing. And — I’m not gonna deny it — busy in the emo­tional end of things.

Yes­ter­day marked 7 months since my Dad unex­pect­edly passed away; a feel­ing I’m still try­ing to come to grips with. Every­body has said that it will get bet­ter as time passes, but it seems to me that I feel more emo­tion­ally drained as the days go by.

This past week, Dr. Bro came into town. Amidst the hec­tic sched­ule I’ve had for work, plus the added pres­sure of being at a local onsite hos­pi­tal this past week … I had been just a leee­tle stressed.

Okay. A lot stressed. Espe­cially given that I knew this was loom­ing over my head this past Tuesday.

But the real rea­son Dr. Bro came into town was to sur­prise the “lit­tle” cousins (who aren’t so lit­tle any more … they made me a mar­garita, for Pete’s sake!) who had orga­nized a pre-​​4^th cel­e­bra­tion to coin­cide with the local city’s fire­works. He wanted to be here to be with Dad’s side of the fam­ily; to spend time with us, because — if he’s feel­ing any­thing like I am — he wanted to feel closer to Dad. Unfor­tu­nately, he could only stay for two nights; and the sec­ond night had been for the party.

It was a glo­ri­ous night; spent bar­be­cue­ing at my Aunts’ back­yard … which just hap­pens to be next to a lake.  Oh, and did I men­tion that they just hap­pen to be located behind the park where the fire­works are held every year? Need­less to say, we had the best seat in the city! The fam­ily had a blast, espe­cially the cousins who were able to eat (and — ahem — drink) to our hearts’ content.

After­wards, on the drive home I sud­denly felt this wave of sad­ness take over. The best way I can describe it is the melan­choly I would feel in my youth (and even to this day) when­ever I had to say good-​​bye to out-​​of-​​town fam­ily after spend­ing a won­der­ful amount of time (a week­end or even an entire vaca­tion) with them. I’d sud­denly feel lonely and wish we could stay together forever.

I chalked most it up to the fact that I got to spend such lit­tle time with Dr. Bro this time around. He spent his one full day help­ing Mom search for a new car, while I had to work at an onsite loca­tion the entire day. And since I had to work again the next day, we would have no chance to spend any quiet time alone.

The other part I chalked up to miss­ing my Dad. After all, I think he would have totally got­ten a kick out of the “cousins” doing the cook­ing and the serv­ing; would have loved to see us kick back and have such relax­ing fun together. Which, of course, had me spilling some tears for a bit.

Flash for­ward to yes­ter­day … Mom, Hubby & I went to church and then to the ceme­tery to bring some flow­ers and visit Dad. I knew that Dr. Bro had vis­ited him the day after our party; which I can only imag­ine was a toughy. (At least I live closer and can visit Dad more often.)

What I hadn’t expected was to see pic­tures of my niece, Emilia Grace, taped to my Dad’s grave­stone. And the minute I saw the pic­ture of my Dad hold­ing his grand­daugh­ter, I fell to tears. I knew how much my Dad loved kids, so see­ing that pic­ture broke my heart; espe­cially since we all knew that he’d never be able to phys­i­cally hold his grand­child and play with her.

And, although these days I try very hard to let my Infer­til­ity get the best of me … see­ing that pic­ture also reminded me that I was never was able to give him the grand­kids that both my par­ents deserved. And if I did have any kids, he would have had at least a good 13 years to spend with them before he died. But instead, he only got to see and hold his one grand­child a few days after her birth … and then three weeks later, he was gone.

I know that a lot of these emo­tions are stem­ming from the fact that my birth­day is com­ing up. And that it fol­lows an unful­filled wed­ding anniver­sary date and yet another major hol­i­day. But really … when does this get bet­ter? When can I finally see more bits of hap­pi­ness than shades of blue?