I still don't know how to feel about this....

This is a long one, so I apologize in advance...

A few years ago it was just an ordinary day. The kind of day that feels so normal you don’t realize it will become a memory you replay for the rest of your life.

We were all sitting around the table eating dinner, laughing, joking like we always did. Nothing felt heavy or serious. I had just bought my dad a new smoker and he was so excited about it. That day he smoked a whole roll of bologna on it like it was the greatest thing in the world. He sat at his computer afterward watching college football, happy and relaxed, the way he always was when his teams were playing.

Later that night he grabbed a snack — Devil Dogs, his favorite — and went into his room.

Twenty minutes later my stepmom called my name. Her voice was wrong. Panicked. She said my dad wasn’t breathing… that he was turning purple.

I ran into the room faster than I ever have in my life. When I got there he was lying on the bed, eyes wide open, lips already turning that deep shade of purple. He looked like he was barely there anymore.

We pulled him onto the floor. I checked for a pulse and couldn’t feel one. I started chest compressions immediately. I remember begging, but trying so hard to stay strong — for him, for everyone else in the house.

And then suddenly… he breathed.

To this day I don’t know if it was because of the compressions or if it was just a reflex his body had left in it. But when he did breathe again, he grabbed onto my arm. His hand was tight around it.

He looked right at me. And he said he loved me. Then he passed… right there in my arms.

The EMT station is less than five minutes from my house. That night it took them more than twenty minutes to arrive. By the time they got there, he was far gone.

What stays with me the most isn’t even the panic of that moment. It’s the way he looked at me. There was something in his eyes — something calm, almost certain — like he was trying to tell me something without words. Like he was passing something to me. A responsibility. A strength. Like he was telling me to take care of the family… to watch over my little sister… to be strong now that he couldn’t be there.

They took him to the hospital, and later we all went to say goodbye.

It was the first time I had ever touched someone who was gone. His body was cold. Still. It didn’t feel real. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t even say goodbye. Even now, years later, I still haven’t truly cried over it.

Sometimes I wonder if something is wrong with me because of that.

But grief doesn’t look the same for everyone.

What I feel instead is this quiet, hollow space where he used to be. I miss the small things more than anything — the way he’d give me little quotes every day, the way we’d sit and watch sports together, the way he’d call me his babygirl no matter how old I got.

People say it gets easier with time.

Maybe for some it does.

For me, it hasn’t really gotten easier. The pain just learned how to sit quietly beside the love.

At his send-off we released paper lanterns into the sky. As they lifted and drifted upward, a song started playing in the background — Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

His favorite song.

I remember standing there watching the lanterns float higher and higher, and something about that moment felt… intentional. Like he was still there somehow, sending one last message.

For a long time I didn’t understand it. But now I think I do.

I think the message wasn’t about the moment he died. It was about the love he left behind. About being strong. About carrying the pieces of him forward in the way I live my life.

Because even though he’s gone, the things he gave me — his love, his lessons, his voice in the back of my mind telling me I can handle whatever comes next — those never left.

And maybe that’s what he was trying to tell me with that last look. That I would be okay. That I was strong enough.

And that I would always, always be his babygirl.