Journey with Della

Five years on,
and grief is still a strange companion.

It no longer always comes as a storm.
Sometimes it arrives as a whisper,
quiet enough to almost sound like love,
asking whether moving forward
means leaving Daddy behind.

It whispers that laughter comes too easily now.
That enjoying what Daddy once enjoyed
without aching for him
is somehow insensitive.
That a whole day lived fully,
without thinking of him,
is a small act of disrespect.

Grief is a strange thing.

Because five years later,
I can look back at the road—
the confusion,
the questions,
the anger,
the frustration,
the days of wondering
how the world could keep moving
when mine had changed forever—

and say something
I never thought grief would permit me to say:

It was worth it.

Not losing Daddy.
Never that.

But having loved him enough
for losing him
to hurt this much.

And God—

if all You had done
was give me Daddy,
it would have been enough.

If all You had given me
were the years before these five years,
the sound of his voice,
the shelter of his presence,
the lessons I did not know I was learning,
the choices I did not know
would one day become inheritance—

it would have been enough.

If all I had left
were memories—
no explanations,
no answers,
no meaning wrestled from the pain—

just the privilege
of having once called him Daddy,

it would have been enough.

Because his was no ordinary life.

Daddy never walked streets of gold.
He was not born
with a golden spoon in his mouth.

But he took the life You gave him
and made choices
that are still speaking
five years after his voice went silent.

Choices that summon me to accountability.
Choices that demand something of my own life.
Choices that taught me
that inheritance is not always
what a father leaves for his children—

sometimes it is
what his life calls his children
to become.

And yet, God,
You did more.

You did not only give me Daddy.

When he left,
You stayed.

When grief broke me open,
You did not waste the pieces.

You took what felt like an ending
and somehow kept writing.

You let loss deepen me
without letting it define me.

You taught me
that moving forward
is not moving away from Daddy.

That laughter is not betrayal.
That healing is not forgetting.
That I do not have to keep hurting
to prove that he mattered.

You taught me
to carry him differently—

not only in tears,
not only in memories,
not only in the ache
of what can never happen again,

but in the way I live.

So I will keep becoming.

I will laugh without apology.
Remember without guilt.
Live whole days
when grief says nothing at all.

And when it speaks again,
I will listen—

but I will not let it convince me
that sorrow is the only evidence
that love was real.

Because five years on,
I know better.

Daddy’s life was the gift.

Grief
is simply the receipt
that something priceless
was once placed in my hands.

And God—

if all You had ever done
was give me a father
whose life was worth grieving like this,

it would have been enough.

But You did more.

You gave me his life.
Then You gave me grace
to survive his death.

You gave me memories.
Then You turned them into marching orders.

You gave me an inheritance.
Then You gave me years
in which to spend it well.

So whatever remains
of this life You still trust me with,

I will make it count.

For Daddy.
For the years before these five years.
For the lessons that survived his voice.
For the choices that outlived his body.
For the God who gave him.
And for the God who carried me
when He took him home.

Five years on,
I still miss Daddy.

Deeply.

But deeper still
is the gratitude
that there was a life so priceless
that losing it could hurt this much.

If all You had done
was give me Daddy,

it would have been enough.

But You gave me more.

You gave me Daddy’s legacy—

and another day
to live it.