It’s about grief. So really, you can stop there if you like. I won’t side-eye you at all if you back away slowly.
But today is September 18th. This date has absolutely no importance to me or my family. No birthdays, anniversaries, deaths… there is nothing I can think of to attribute to this particular day that should matter to me. 
And yet here we are, two years and three months out from my father’s death (Passing? Demise? Shuffle from this mortal coil? None of them sound right.) and the grief from it is pricking at me like a fresh, raw thing.
When I was a kid, there were no major deaths that rocked our family. I was lucky not to lose any immediate family members at a young age, so I imagined that grief would start out harsh and painful, loads of wailing and the whole sackcloth and ashes bit, but then it would slowly taper off, the sharpness would dull, eroded away to a pebble of sadness that would make me feel occasionally misty or sentimental when something would trigger a memory to bubble back up to the surface. That would be it. A steady progression, and nothing more.
But lo and behold, two years out from dealing with the death of my dad and a miscarriage, and the rough edges haven’t worn down. Last night, my youngest daughter wanted me to read a book about owls to her, and I sat there and bawled and blubbered through the entire story, because there was a Grandpa Owl and he took his little owl grandkids fishing and I’M OUT I’M OUT I’M DONE MY FACE FEELS THICK AND BURNY AND I DON’T LIKE THIS ANYMORE.
It was like stepping onto what I thought would be a safe, quiet, one-lane dirt road and getting run down by an out-of-state U-Haul towing a pick-up truck behind it. And I’m still feeling the repercussions of it today, like the slightest thing might set it off again, and all for seemingly no reason. 
But I guess since life is like that, smacking you in the face with things you’re not ready for and not expecting, it follows that grief (a fallout from life, really) would share the same characteristics. It doesn’t slowly fade away, all graceful-like. Instead it likes to wallop you from behind, steal your pocket change, and kick dirt on you one more time before it runs off to hide again.
So what is the point of this post? Grief sucks. There’s no way around that. And it doesn’t always get easier. It might change shape, take on new and different qualities, but it never really goes away. It becomes a part of us, like a scar, a wrinkle, that weird spot on your shoulder that you probably should get checked out… It’s there, an echo of loss that ripples out and affects those still living in its wake.
*sigh*
I miss you, Dad. And the kids miss you, too.