I’m currently aboard a flight to St. Louis, on what would have been your 59th Birthday. I can’t help but remember my first trip there. I had just turned 19. I was young, and in love for the first time. We fought for weeks before I left. Every time you told me I couldn’t go, my hatred grew. You told me you’d break my legs to prevent me from going. You’d disown me, and murder him, if I returned pregnant. You tried to lock me in my room. You called his mom. You threatened him. You embarrassed me so deeply I almost let you win and canceled the trip. You said even if I were legally an adult, I was still your little girl…that it would always be your job to protect me. At first that enraged me. But as I sat with it, I realized what I would continue to forget over and over throughout my life. You were acting out of love, in your misguided way. Like when you stole sneakers from the shoe store, so I would stop being made fun of in school. Alarms went off, security chased you down the street, as I was left standing there, traumatized, your accomplice ushering me away. You got angry when I refused to wear them, but the irony is that it was because you had raised us to be honest. You instilled in us the same integrity you would fight against. You were so inherently good, but made the worst decisions. I am still angry that you’re gone…That the 3 of us ate a piece of chocolate cake in honor of you today, instead of fighting you for a bite of it. But more than that, I’m grateful. To have these memories to look back on. To know that the person I am is a reflection of the person you were when heroin wasn’t driving. To have this love. To call you my father. I love you big much. Happy Birthday. 
