Dear Dad,
Today is your birthday.
You would be 78 years old.
Happy Heavenly Birthday, Dad.
There is so much we need to catch up on.
So much I wish I could tell you face-to-face. So many questions I wish I had asked when you were still here living on this earth.
If I had known there would come a day when I would no longer have the chance, I would have asked more. I would have listened longer. I would have held onto every story, every memory, every piece of who you were before life became so hard.
Because Dad, there is so much I still want to know.
I want to know about you as a young man. Your high school days. Your college days. Your friends. Your dreams. The music you loved. The trouble you may have gotten into. The things that made you laugh.
I want to know about the life you thought you were going to have before everything changed.
I was only five when the farming accident happened.
Too young to truly understand what it meant for you to become a quadriplegic.
Too young to understand the pain you would carry every single day.
Too young to understand the strength it took for you to keep showing up for your four children when your body had suffered so much.
But I understand more now.
You were the strongest man I knew.
And I believe you will always be the strongest man I will ever know.
What you went through on a daily basis — the pain, the health issues, the limitations, the grief, the frustration — it was almost unreal.
And yet somehow, you handled it.
Somehow, you kept going.
Somehow, even after Mom left and life became even heavier, you persevered and gave us what you could.
It was hard. I know it was hard.
Thankfully, Grandma lived next door, and friends and family helped when they could. But even with help, you were still our dad.
You were still the one we looked to.
You were still the one fighting through each day.
You carried more than most people will ever understand, and now that I am older, I see the weight of that in a way I never could as a child.
I wish I could ask you how you did it.
Did you feel scared?
Did you feel angry?
Did you grieve the life you thought you were going to live?
What kept you going when your body hurt and your heart was tired?
Did you know how much your strength was shaping us?
I wish I had asked those questions.
Things have become almost unbelievable down here on earth, Dad.
The world feels like it is spinning faster and faster. It is loud, divided, heavy, and confusing.
Some days I wonder what you would think of it all.
I wonder what you would say about the way people treat each other, about the state of the world, about how quickly everything has changed.
I wish I could sit with you and ask:
“Dad, how do we stay grounded in a world like this?”
But even in the middle of all of it, there is still pure joy and beauty here.
So much of that lives in your grandchildren.
You would be so proud of all of them, Dad.
You would be proud of the light they carry, the love they share, and the way they pass that love on to the people they meet. Each one of them has something special, something bright, something that feels like it was touched by you.
I believe part of your light is in them.
I believe it came through when each of your grandchildren were born, like little pieces of your spirit continuing on in this world.
And your granddaughter — my daughter — you would love her so much.
She is so pure and lives every day to its fullest. She sings like you, and she shares a love like yours.
There is something in her spirit that feels familiar, like a little light passed down through the family.
I wish you could hear her voice.
I wish you could see her wonder.
I wish you could know her here on earth, but somehow I believe you do.
You would be so proud of your children, Dad.
They have endured immense pain too, and they have come through it stronger than ever.
I know you know their power and their strength.
I know you see the ways they have survived, grown, carried on, and kept pieces of you alive.
We all talk about the memories we have.
Some are clear.
Some come in fragments.
Some are tucked away in places my mind has not been ready to reach yet.
I have many gaps in my memory, and I hope someday I can recover more of them when my mind and body finally feel safe enough to let all of the trauma and hardship go.
It is a work in progress.
I am learning what happens when sadness gets trapped inside you for too long. I am learning what it does to your body and your mind when you spend years feeling like you either have to fight or run away.
I will let you know how it all works out.
I miss our farmhouse.
I wish every day that it was still ours.
I wish it was still a place where we could rest, recoup, and reconnect with each other.
A place where our family could gather, remember, heal, and feel close to you again.
I am working on a plan to maybe make that a possibility someday. I do not know exactly how yet, but the dream is there.
I want to share your story and our family’s story with the world.
I want people to know the strong, brave man that you were.
I want them to know that your life was not only marked by suffering, but by courage. By perseverance. By love.
By the kind of strength that does not need to be loud to be powerful.
I am still learning about your past as a young man. I am looking forward to talking with some of your friends and colleagues, hearing their stories, and gathering the pieces of you I did not know.
It feels important.
It feels like a way to honor you.
It feels like a way to bring more of you back into the light.
Mom still talks of you often.
I believe she carries deep wounds from the path she chose to take.
She is still working through them, still fighting those demons, and I sincerely hope she can beat them before it is her time.
There is pain there, Dad. There always has been.
But I am trying to look at it with more understanding now.
Not because everything was okay, but because healing asks us to see the whole story, even the broken parts.
I know for sure that you would absolutely love my husband.
He has rescued and saved me in so many ways that I have lost count.
He is a musician and plays guitar, and he is an amazing dad too.
I just know you two could talk about music and politics all day long. I can picture it so clearly.
I think you would respect him.
I think you would be grateful that he loves me and protects our family the way he does.
And Dad, I know you are keeping our sweet angels safe and happy with you up there in the great unknown.
They were just not meant for this earth.
That truth has taken me time to make peace with, but I believe they are with you. I believe they are held in love.
One made it through to be here with us on earth, and she is our miracle.
We will protect her with all that we have.
I have made peace with those losses in a way I did not think I could.
I realize now that God has another plan for us all, and I am learning to listen.
I am learning to follow the leads, the signs, the quiet signals that come when I slow down enough to notice them.
Your life still teaches me, Dad.
You taught me that strength is not always standing tall.
Sometimes strength is surviving in a body that has been broken.
Sometimes strength is waking up in pain and still loving your children.
Sometimes strength is accepting help and still finding a way to give.
Sometimes strength is staying when everything in life has become harder than anyone can imagine.
You were proof that love can survive hardship.
You were proof that a man can suffer deeply and still give deeply.
You were proof that even when life takes so much, what remains can still matter.
So today, on your heavenly birthday, I am not only remembering the day you were born.
I am honoring the life you lived.
I am honoring the father you were.
I am honoring the sacrifices I understand more now than I ever did before.
I miss you, Dad.
I miss what was.
I miss what could have been.
I miss the questions I never asked.
I miss the farmhouse.
I miss the feeling of knowing you were here.
But I carry you with me.
In my strength.
In my softness.
In my daughter’s song.
In the stories I am still gathering.
In the healing I am still working through.
In the family that still remembers you.
In the love that did not end when you left this earth.
Happy Heavenly Birthday, Dad.
I hope heaven feels as peaceful as your life here was hard.
You deserve that peace.
With all my love,
Your Daughter
The Peaceful Bakehouse 
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