Dear Dad,

The beginning of these letters is always so awkward for me. When I'm writing to people who are alive, I really hate to start letters by just jumping into the specifics of my life. I'd much rather start by pretending I am concerned about what's going on in their lives. I really am usually concerned, but it's ironic that the one person I'm most concerned about can't respond to me. So, fuck it. On to me.

Tomorrow at 2pm we will bury your ashes among the first big group of trees you planted by the house. Closer to when you died, when things started gradually getting better and I realized I would be able to someday move on with my life, June seemed so far away and I was all, shit, burying him won't be THAT hard. After all, we have certainly come to terms with your death. We know you're gone. We know you're not coming back. It hasn't been easy but it's getting better, little by little. However, I think there are going to be some wounds seriously ripped open tomorrow. I know there are. We are going to bring some of your favorite beers along though, and beer heals all wounds, right? At least temporarily. Just not for violent drunks. Or those drinking with violent drunks.

John, Martine, Romain, and Red are all on their way to Duluth right now. I'm excited to see them, despite the shitty, shitty circumstances. I keep thinking that this weekend would be so perfect if you were here. You're the only thing missing. For God's sake, the weather might even cooperate. Can't God make an exception just this one time and let us have you back for a day or two? If he did, I swear I'd willingly go back with you when the time came.

Every single day, things happen that I want to tell you about. I wish I was better about writing these letters to let you know just what those things are, or at least so I never forget how important a part of my life you were, and how I could tell you damn near anything, even those things you didn't necessarily want to hear. I'm way too lazy though. Lazy and addicted to reality tv. Also, crying is exhausting. So is reapplying my mascara.

Last weekend, I took Maisy up to Tower for a night. She's all fixed up now, which has improved my mood significantly and I love that I can take her places with me now without worrying about her eye gunk, pain pills, lampshade collar, stitches, etc. She no longer cries and paces in the backseat. She's learned to embrace riding in the car, especially if we're going to the vet...goofball.

Anyway, it was a really nice weekend in Tower. Taylor spent all day Saturday with us and she is absolutely hilarious. I saw her Memorial Day weekend and, just in the two weeks since then, she has become a complete chatterbox. She's absolutely hilarious. She even played hide and seek with me for the first time, though she needs some work. We hid behind Red's bed, waiting for Mike to come find us and I thought Taylor was totally going to pull it off. She ducked her head down and kept quiet for a while. When she heard Mike coming, she peeked over the edge of the bed and watched for him. As soon as he walked into the room, she jumped up excitedly and started screaming. Guess what. He found us.

You know what sucked about last weekend? Church. I'm sorry. I know Jesus is your homeboy and he's my homeboy too, but there's something about church that has been so hard for me since you left us. Being in Tower makes it ten times worse. In fact, I think this was the first time I've been to Sunday morning mass in Tower (holidays excepted) since your death. It was awful seeing somebody else sitting on the right side of the second pew from the back, somebody who didn't ask me to go out for coffee or breakfast at Good Ol' Days afterwards.

The FedEx guy just stopped by about fifteen minutes ago to drop off a dvd copy of your fifteen minutes of fame, as seen on NBC Nightly News. I paid $150 for it, and I don't care that you know it. As I see it, they may have just raped me, but I'm taking a souvenir away from it. And it's not one of those souvenirs I have to buy diapers for. Hello, metaphorical rape! Yes, I have been drinking a little and, no, I have no idea where the hell I was going with that. Your appearances are even shorter than I remember but it's still SO. FUCKING. WORTH. IT. Your grandchildren are going to resent that dvd when they just want to watch Dora and her magic talking map and Mommy won't stop watching the snowplow driver and crying. Such is life. I like to think that if I was on the nightly news and I died, you would pay $150 for a copy of it...and $10 for the overnight shipping too.

Red and I went to Seattle a couple weeks ago. The weather was gorgeous the whole time we were there. What a beautiful city. I don't know what it looked like in 1962 when you went for the world's fair (Nic's mom was there too! Did you see her?) but, as far as big cities go, it's definitely your type. I was shocked by how green it was, and I don't mean green in the hippie-Al Gore-don't-bag-your-groceries-don't-drive-your-car kind of way. Well, they do encourage you to not drive your car, but that's only because traffic is so awful. When I say it's green, I mean there are trees everywhere. We got in at about 2am so didn't really see any of Seattle at first but when I peeked out our 16th floor window at about 10 the next morning, I was very impressed.

It was a great trip. I love being a tourist, I love shopping, and I love seafood. Seattle had the best of all three. If you were still around, I think this would have been the one we'd talked you into. I got the impression that you regretted not going to San Francisco with us, and I think we regretted not pushing the issue more. However, if you had come, the landing in Minneapolis may have exploded your heart. It almost exploded mine. I was positive we were going to die. I haven't flown a whole ton of times in my life, but this is the first one I've been on that ended with the passengers applauding and the flight attendants exclaiming, "That IS something to clap about!"

I'm starting to get mildly stressed about the wedding, but mostly I'm just excited for it to get here so we can make this thing legal, get drunk in Antigua for a week, and start popping out kids.

Oh! I forgot to tell you. I may have mentioned that Red has been hanging out with Chuck on occasion. Well, I brought her back to the cities over Memorial weekend and went to a party with her and Chuck was there. He wasn't coincidentally there, of course. It was close to his house and Red definitely invited him, but I couldn't believe he actually showed up. It was pretty awkward at first and, by the time I was actually getting comfortable talking to him, Red was slapping Dustin and it was time to go. Oh well, no harm done.

If you get a chance tomorrow, stop by the ol' homestead and pat me on the back. I'll need it. Right around 2:00.

Love,
Angie