I have a lot of words, as you have always known, but none that will ever adequately be able to express how much and how deeply I love you.
You are my daddy, my protector, my first love, my hilarious jokester, my quiet, music loving, concert going, backwards hat wearing, beach loving, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant daddy. You are everything good in my life.
Do you remember on the drives to school every morning how you would ask me what I was thinking about? I think I usually responded with "nothing," mainly because I was afraid that if I told you what I was really thinking, it would break your heart because I was always so sad. And I couldn't handle breaking your heart any more than life already had. But you taught me something powerful on those drives to school with that one simple question. You taught me that I mattered - that my thoughts mattered, that my feelings mattered. You taught me that you cared. You taught me how to think about what I was thinking about. My favorite question to wonder silently to myself about those I love now is: "what are you thinking?"
The way that you carried your family through the war, how you built a fortress of love so strong it can withstand a bloody bath of attack after attacks, a hurricane of pain, a tundra of emptiness, is the one thing that leaves me speechless in this life. On days when I was too afraid to climb out of bed, too afraid of the monster of life that awaited, all I had to do was look up at you and take my cues. By watching you and by listening to you, I learned how to power through, how to guard my heart and my family with a fierceness that life demands, but in a way that still allowed the light and the joy to seep through.
Any time I hear I'm like you, which is often, a smile plays across my face because I know I just received one of the best compliments I'll ever receive. To be like my own father, the best father on the planet, is one of the greatest honors of my life and something I will be proud of until the end of time (even when mom sometimes isn't quite meaning it as the compliment I receive it as). If I can ever be a fraction of as cool, intelligent, both interested and interesting, strong and unwavering as you are, I know I'll be okay.
You have been championing me from day one of my life. I know that and feel that so deeply within my bones, it's like the act of breathing itself - just natural and ingrained in my brain, in my organisms, in my being. You have given me everything you could in this life, and on the rare occasions when you couldn't give me what I needed, you let me know that I mattered, that the situation mattered, that you cared, that you were there for me, and that you loved me beyond this life. So really, what more could I have ever needed?
Thank you and I love you. So so so so so so so so much.
p.s. - thank you for not giving up the good fight. thank you for fighting, for kicking cancers ass. who does it think it is messing with michael morris, the most badass papa bear out there? it clearly doesn't know what i know.
p.p.s. - growing up, somehow when the toilet paper in Zach and mine's bathroom was low, a new roll would magically appear on the countertop, ready to be changed over when the time would soon come. i, for some reason, though i should have known better, always just assumed Zach was the thoughtful culprit behind the fresh roll. after he died, the fresh roll of toilet paper kept appearing on the countertop. i remember the first time i ever saw it after that day in december. it was early in the morning and there it was - sitting to the right on our black granite countertop. in that very instant i felt like Zach was there, in something as silly as a fresh roll of toilet paper. i sincerely thought he had magically placed the new roll there, straight from heaven himself. it took me several years to figure out that the fresh toilet paper placer was actually you and not my gone brother, but it's still the most simple of acts that makes me smile and feel more loved than a piece of toilet paper should ever make a sane person feel. thank you for that. have i told you i love you yet?