This post is written in honor of my dad, who’s birthday would have been yesterday. It’s been almost 10 years since he passed, but I still think of him nearly every day, especially around his birthday and the holiday season.

It’s also written in honor of the many amazing people I have come to know on this journey, who have inspired me and changed my life in so many ways.

…

Nothing prepares you for the loss of a parent. No matter how close you are to that parent. No matter if it’s a parent that you only see about once a year. A parent that lives a plane ride away. A parent who has not been able to show up as a parent for as long as you’ve been a child.

They are still a parent. A part of you. The reason for your existence. “You look more like your dad.” A living reminder of him just in the shape of my mouth. or eyes. or nose.

As a child, you don’t really know how to navigate this relationship. It’s usually not reflected in the family dynamics of those around you. Your friends who seem to have found a best friend in their fathers. I vividly remember every “bring your dad to school day” in elementary school I would sit alone at a table and cry. I thought maybe my mom could come instead, but for a variety of reasons that wasn’t possible either. So I would sit and stare at my tear-stained Uncrustable and feel a pang of loneliness that I wouldn’t be able to describe or understand for years to come.

I remember watching the movie, “What A Girl Wants,” with Amanda Bynes when I was 12 or 14. I was obsessed. I think I related to her living in a single parent household with a working mom. Even more so when she has to watch father-daughter dances being continuously performed at weddings and realizes she’ll never have that moment herself.

Except she does. Sorry — spoiler alert. She finds her father, Colin Firth (huge win by the way), and the end of the movie comes full circle when he shows up to dance with her during one of these father-daughter dances. I cry every time.

Because Colin Firth will not be showing up to dance with me at a father-daughter dance. Nor will he show up to walk me down the aisle. In my movie, my Colin Firth, my dad, passed away when I was 16.

And it took a really long time to not blame myself.