MY FATHER WAS gone.
He had given up his very existence in this life and beyond. He would never return to my mother in the afterlife again. Or to me.
I glanced over at my friends just to make sure they were still there. They were no longer one-hundred-percent purely products of my imagination. They were alive. They were living and breathing and staring in awe at the already fading memory of my father’s final heroic battle.
Joe was laughing. Willy was whooping wildly and pumping his fist in the air. Mel and Emma were both shedding tears for my loss.
Emotions were definitely running high because, like I was saying, they were all very much alive again.
I couldn’t explain how all this happened, what power in the universe was ultimately responsible.
I just had to accept it.
And so I did. With a ton of humility and gratitude.
“Thanks, Dad,” I whispered to the wind. “Thanks for everything.”
And then I looked up to the heavens and echoed his famous last words: “I love you. Always.”