Thinking of my Dad Today

I am thinking about my dad today. It is the fourth anniversary of the day he died.

I can't quite bring myself to go to visit his grave on this day but I have found it to be comforting to visit other cemeteries. Last year, I went to the St. James Cemetery (which seemed especially appropriate because my dad's name was Jim) and had a walk around. It is one of the oldest cemeteries in Toronto and has some very cool monuments, including this unusual one which commemorates the lives of several young people who drowned on Balsam Lake in July 1926. He and my mom had found this monument one day a few years before when they were exploring this cemetery and had described it to me but I had never seen it, so I decided to go looking for it. Wouldn't you know, I walked around the entire place for an hour and was just coming down the very last roadway when I finally came across it, very near the main entrance! If I had turned left instead of right when I first arrived, I would have found it in the first 2 minutes! It didn't matter, it was a nice way to spend some time and it made me feel good to know he had once walked those same paths.

I read somewhere recently that we never really get over losing someone we love, we just learn to live without them. I believe that is true. Life carries on, it's just different without them in it, but who you are is forever changed by having had them in your life.