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Just Say That You’re Proud

Sometimes I find myself living for you or at least wanting to live for you. It makes me so frustrated, if I’m being honest. Because there’s really nothing less satisfying than living for someone else. But I still find myself wishing I could just make you proud. Do things the right way…the best way…the perfect way. Despite the fact that you’ve never once demanded perfection from me  


Sometimes I shake off the dust of a hard days work and I want to wait for you to say it. 


Please…


Just say that you’re proud. 


That’s all I’m hoping for. Just a few words that remind me that I’m still doing good. Still working hard. Still worthy of all the things the world tells me I’m not anymore. 


I’m constantly shifting and changing and working my butt off to provide a wonderful life for my kid. It’s exhausting and sometimes I hate that you stopped telling me it. 


Just say that you’re proud. 


If you would just say it I think I could believe it. I could believe that I did it. That I saved me…that I saved her…that I saved us. And I made us into something that could never have existed without all the effort that cost me so much. 


I’m so sick and tired of waiting for you. Of being let down by you. Of wishing for anything else besides what’s right in front of me. Because wishing for you is like wishing for water in the desert. You’re just not meant to exist here. 


And so, because you refuse to tell me, I tell myself. 


I’m proud of myself for surviving.

I’m proud of myself for choosing my daughter. 

I’m proud of myself for deciding to try even when you stopped saying it. 


Even with all of that…I still catch myself off guard hoping for you…


Just say that you’re proud…


But you won’t…

because you died…

and I’m all that’s left to say it. 


I still wish you’d said it though…


After I adopted Laura…


After I went to therapy to stop the panic attacks…


After I went on a date and cried when I got home…


After I tried and failed…again and again and again…


After I cleaned out your garage…


After I swam with dolphins…


After I got that tattoo…


After I adventured without you…


I really like to believe that you’d be proud. Because for so long you were the most important person in my whole world…

And then you just died…and everything changed…and I had to keep going.  


Grief is a funny thing, you know. It always exists, in a million different ways. I can know with my whole heart that you’re in a better place, without suffering or grief. I can even choose to thank God for the life and death of the person I loved most in the world. I can know all the things…believe all the truths and still, every once in a while, wish you could…one more time…


Just say that you’re proud. 


The cost of loving you was this unending grief…that fades as time goes on but never disappears. 


But John, you will always have been worth it. 






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