Daddy's Girl

So, my dad died on the tenth of the month. And I feel like my family ties are all snapping. It's not that any of my family has turned there back on me, in fact it's the opposite everyone is calling me to find out how I'm doing, but none of them really want to know. Aunts, cousins, mother, they all call and ask how I am and then go into how they are when I say I'm okay. And in all honesty I can't blame them I have always been the one who tries to make others feel better, so i do my best to comfort them and i feel like i have nothing left for myself.
I lost the only man and really the only person in the world who has known every bad choice and decision I have ever made and always accepted me for who I was 100%.
-My mother, I can't remember a single conversation that I have ever had with her that she hasn't tried to change me. My hair, my weight, my political views, my opinions on life, she's always more concerned with what other people will think than with what I care about. Even in the midst of our pain she cannot have a conversation with me without telling me something I need to change. I know she loves me, but I just wish she could accept me like I do her, I may not agree with everything she does, but I acknowledge that its her life and only she can live it.
-My sisters, I love them both more than I can explain. My whole life all I ever wanted was for them to include me, but by the time I came along they had already been playmates for several years to them I was always just a bratty kid sister who followed them around, which in honesty was probably really annoying. The thing is though that we are all just very different individuals, we all had different interests, we all belonged to different cliques in school. As much as I respect both of them we just don't have much in common & never really have. We have never ever confided in one another, so it would just be unbearably awkward now if i called them out of the blue to bare my soul I'm sure.
My father never once told me I needed to lose weight, he just always told me I was beautiful when I was at my heaviest or my thinnest. I was always a bit adventurous with my haircuts, but unlike the others he never told me he didn't like one of them unless I said it first, and then he would just remind me that it would grow back. I was in chorus, I took guitar lessons, I went to a preforming arts school when I was in a ton of plays & musicals, I was in the hand bell choir, mock trial, varsity volleyball, foreign language club, and various other things... He never questions a single one of them. He may not have understood the draw of them all or even most of them, but if I loved it he would throw himself behind it. He never missed one of my functions, my games, my concerts, or my plays. Even if he had to drive a few hours to get there or leave work early. He ran concession stands at my volleyball games and spent countless Saturdays at tournaments or driving me to the other side of the state for choir All-State auditions with the radio off so that I could practice my song selections.
One day he drove 45 minutes from one Wal-Mart to another in a different town because I needed something for a school project & I had seen my recently ex-boyfriend walking in the store with his new girlfriend, and he didn't lecture me about it at all, he never even said a word about it, even on the drive.
He taught me to drive, he taught me to use power tools because I was always more fascinated with tools than say shopping with my mom like my sisters were. When i beat every boy in my 7th grade class at arm wrestling he didn't get mad and tell me not to do that because it was un-lady like, like my mom did, he patted me on the back and said, "that's my girl," with a huge smile on his face. He may not have understood why i did the things I did anymore than the rest of my family, but he never tried to stop me. He always told me to just give it my all and he would be proud. And he was. I always fit in with him. Even if he didn't understand why i would want to do something, he never told me not to try, he never asked if, "I knew what people would think?" about something. And now that he's gone I feel like I don't fit in with the rest of my immediate family. Why put up with talking to my mom now when I know that she will only insult me at some point in our conversation & then try to make me into the bad guy when I disagree with her? Why even try to call my sisters when I am always the one who has to contact them? I feel like I'm still 8 years old trying to get them to play with me while they are locking me out of their rooms. It's like he was the glue that bound us together and now that he's gone we can't find a way to stay connected.

I don't know how to get through this. I hate when people say they are sorry, because I never know what to say back... and I just feel uncomfortable. My dad taught me everything, to help the less fortunate, to look out for those who can't look out for themselves, he taught me how to read, how to drive, how to tie my own shoe laces, to always do my best because then you'll never have a reason to wonder if you could have done better. He was a big man with an even bigger heart & in the end he had just given so much of his heart to everything he did that it just wasn't strong enough to keep going. I remember being a little girl and him hoisting me up on top of his shoulders. My dad was 6'6" tall and I felt like I could see everything from atop his shoulders, everything in the world. And that's what my dad gave me, the world. There was nothing I couldn't tell my daddy, their was nothing that my daddy couldn't protect me from. I was always safe as long as my daddy was watching over me, and now I just have to have faith that he still is watching over me, only from a little further away now.

people say that you are never prepared to lose a loved one, and that's very true. but what I was really really not prepared for was how "back to normal" everything would be so quickly. My life goes on just like it did before and sometimes in all this normalcy I forget that everything isn't just like it was. I think of something funny I want to tell my dad, or of something i should ask him (because he always has the answer), and I'll almost call him. I'll pull out my phone and even hit his speed dial key sometimes before I remember. Those days are the hardest, because it's like it just happened again all over.
I was lucky enough to be there with him when it happened, to spend his last 2 weeks on this earth with him. He knew I loved him and I knew he loved me. There was nothing really unresolved about my father's death in the way you hear people say that they wish they had said something or the other before it was too late. I guess in that since I really am lucky. For the fact that I had such an amazing father whom I was blessed to have 27.5 years with I am exceedingly lucky. I know that it's selfish and that in having him as my daddy I was so much luckier that so many other people, but I miss him. Everyday I miss him.