Dad.

On September 9, 2012 my dad took his life. Despite being surrounded by a huge family who loved and cared for him deeply, we were unable to help him fight the internal battles he was having with himself daily, or alleviate the huge amount of pain he was living in and had been living for a majority of his life.

Despite being hurt by the fact that he left us, my love for my father is strong, enduring, and unending. I know that many people claim that they have the best father, but I truly believe that I in fact, have the best father who has ever graced God's green earth. He loved us and took care of use and always put us first until the very end.

There is always going to be a hole in my heart from his loss, but I will strive daily to fill it with love for him, the rest of my family, and by living the live I know he would want me to live.

My cousin spoke to me about memorializing him, not necessarily with a stone with his name carved in it, but by continuing on the little traditions he always had, like making "chicken legs" out of drink straw wrappers, and many other things.

I always used to speak to my dad about how I wished I could have one of those "cool crafty blogs that everyone went to and was inspired by." I thought it was so cool how someone could, for example, come up with a cool ornament idea that everyone would love, and would in turn inspire a new idea and then a new idea, etc. I always wanted to be a part of something so creative like that. The feeling of community that craft blogs seem to have is truly inspiring! But I always let my own fear hold me back, and I think it even stunted my creativity a bit.

But my dad always praised anything I made, wither it was silly looking, a complete failure, or not. He was always there to cut wood or metal or PVC for whatever half-cocked idea I had floating around in my head.

So from this day forth I am going to spend less time looking at all the other amazing things that other people are making, and start trying to make some amazing things of my own and live the life my dad wanted me to live. This blog and all the silly, crazy, or even awesome things I come up with, will be my memorial to him. Plus it will be a space to show off how awesome of a dad I have when I get to talk about him :)