Nothing is the same, least of all me. I have grown and evolved into many Matildas over my twenty-one years, but becoming ‘Matilda without her dad’ has been the toughest reincarnation yet. But I’m still breathing. If nothing else, the fact I’m still breathing, is a triumph. For a while, it was all I was sure of. For a while, it was all anyone could ask of me. But with painstaking slowness, they were able to ask more of me, and I was able to ask more of myself than just getting out of bed to face a world without my father in it. As night became day, spring became summer, and nineteen became twenty, I began to smile, to laugh, to dream, to dance, to strive, to live. Truly. Deeply. Freely. And not just because I thought I should, but because I wanted to. For me. Freedom came in realizing that I will never ‘move on’ from my father because I take him with me wherever I go. I was only able to move forward once I let go of my fear of leaving him behind. So that’s what I’m doing as I walk barefoot along our favorite beach toward his bench, watching as the crimson sun melts into the sea.
