One of the weird things I noticed the other day about missing my dad is that my life is pretty good.

Lemme ‘splain.

I have this dog. She’s a pug. Never thought I’d ever like a little dog, but this snorting, snarfling, pudgy, little creature had wiggles and sneezed her way into my heart. I want to send my dad her funny pictures and laugh with him at her odd amusing ways. When I took pictures of her at my friends St. Patrick’s day party, I thought about how hard he would have laughed at her picture with the Buddha statue. We would have joked about the Zen of Pugs.

After a number of years of working towards a career goal, I have a job that I love. When I wake up in the morning, I actually look forward to going to work. I consider myself lucky. Earlier today, I was making up stories of what I’d tell my younger self. I wanted to tell her to listen to your dad. He had some things that made a lot of sense – now listen to them! He would be so proud of me, and so terribly happy to know that I am so enjoying my life. When I got my first cell phone, my dad and I talked every day. It was New Technology and it enabled us to be connected like we never could before. It was so cool! When the iPhone first came out, all I could think about was how excited he would have been playing with one. Where I work, we have dictation computers for the doctors. When I first encountered these a few years ago, I remembered my dad struggling with early voice-to-text software. He knew it had promise, but it wasn’t at a usable point then.

It’s an odd feeling missing someone and being terribly sad that they are gone, while at the same time feeling satisfied and happy with a wonderful life that you want to tell them all about.