One thing that I have retained that I heard from our pastor at the very beginning of this life, because this is a very different life, is that losing someone so close to you will always feel like Ocean waves. Sometimes it is calm and then out of nowhere waves are crashing and you can barely stand. It is exactly like that for me. I try to avoid memories at times because of the pain. Even the good memories always make me sad in the end because I know there will be no new ones. At the same time I desperately cling to memories of his voice and the way his hands looked. I am fearful of forgetting him.  I still learn from him daily. I hear his voice encouraging, loving, and sometimes scolding me.  I know some say everything gets better with time. I do not find that to be true though. Everything is wild and chaotic in the beginning, you learn some control as time passes, but it never gets better. The loss is always there, it never leaves,   It just waits for the next wave to rear its ugly head and break you down.  My dad has taught me in life and death to learn from mistakes. He strengthened my faith as I watched him strengthen his own.  Any time I told him thank you he would say " Don't thank me, Thank God for giving me the means to make it happen."  His sayings will stay with me, and anyone else who heard them repeated to us in a lecture.  So, I thank God for the relationship I had with my father, and that I was able to have him for the 21 years that I did. I thank God that I have so many memories of him and that he gave him the means to teach me the way. I thank God that I know he is in heaven and pray that I will follow the right path to see him again one day. I thank God that he gave me the best father I could have asked for.  I love and miss you dad.