It’s the eve of Haley’s 10th birthday and I find myself thinking a lot about him the past few days.   She was only four when he died and has had five birthdays since he’s been gone but again this year I feel the lack of his presence to celebrate another year with his daughter.  Maybe even more because 10 is a milestone birthday.   Double digits now even though she is perpetually four in my eyes for some reason.   I’ll have to ask my therapist why that might be.    She didn’t stop growing at age four when her father died and obviously is much bigger and older looking but that’s where I feel like a part of her might be stuck forever and when I look at her I still see that four year old.   Super weird.   I don’t feel that as much with Hayden, Austin or Tyler.  

I just wonder how different their birthdays might be if he was still here.   What would we do differently?    I do know I over compensate by spending more on them and trying to have more fun to somehow fill that void.   All that does is make me a little lighter in the checkbook.    I’m really not sure they notice like I do.  

The first couple years after he died I tried to acknowledge the day he died and of course his birthday but the first anniversary after we lost him was a disaster so I have since steered clear of anything like that.     I had let the kids pick out big mylar balloons and then write notes to him to send up with the balloons.    We went out on our back deck on that January 25th and said a few things and then released the balloons only to have them get caught in a wind that I didn’t even know was out there and they BOTH got stuck in the trees which got the kids screaming and crying.   “Now daddy won’t get our notes”, etc.     It was terrible.   Hayden’s soon released and went on its way but Haley’s hung around a day or two before it released.   I told them that maybe he was showing us that he’s hanging around to watch over us.  

Writing that just made me tear up because maybe that’s another reason why birthdays are so difficult.   He’s not around to see how much they’ve grown and changed.    And boy have they grown and changed.  

Tomorrow night on her birthday we are going over to Marks and he is going to grill her filets which is her favorite and I’ll make her favorite asparagus and we’ll have cake and ice cream. Then later as I tuck her into bed I’ll tell her that I bet Daddy is especially watching over her this week and is super proud of the girl that she’s growing into.  

This is Haley at four.   Four months before her daddy died and below just a few weeks ago, almost ten.