It’s like you were here yesterday. I remember little things, the good things. But the sad part is it is all the bad things leading to this day overshadow those little things. I always wanted to be a daddy’s girl. I always wanted you to love me more than you ever loved anyone else, I wanted you to be proud of everything I had ever done. But your stoic rugged bad boy persona never let you open up yourself to me. For as long as I could remember, I always thought were so cool. Too cool to love me the way I wanted you to love me. Time passed on and you deteriorated from your own self with the drinking. I know when you loss your mother you couldn’t live for yourself. Your father killed himself before you could really understand where you came from. You grew into a life of war and really just did what you could to get by. You met your first wife and had a baby boy only for them to leave you because of that stupid war. Then you got a second chance with mom and it looked promising. Life was great, for the most part. But the demons and the ghosts from the past clouded your mind so much as you slowly but surely lost your touch with your entire family. I resented you for not loving me the way I thought I should have been loved. And now you’re gone. I never got to say goodbye. I never got to forgive you. To tell you that I knew it wasn’t you but the life you led and people you lost. I never got to say that it’s ok and no matter how much you hurt our entire family, that at the end of the day you are my dad, my creator. You did as much as you could or at least wanted to, to give me and brother a decent life. I do love you, and I’m not mad anymore. I forgive you and pray to the heavens that you are finally free from your demons. I pray that you are at peace and know that in the end, you are and will be loved.