:: 17 Years Later ::
To My Dearest & Beloved Father,
I can't even begin to fathom the turmoil that fell upon my life and the life of many others dear to me, 17 years ago today. An event in time that would send shockwaves on... still to this day the effects of this one event can be felt by those who knew & loved him, & even more so by strangers who never had the pleasure of sharing his company during the short time he walked this earth. It doesn't even feel like he gone now. It's an indescribable connection that has been growing stronger as of late. First, there is the denial. He's gone? I'll never see this face again? I'll never hear that laugh again? I'll never hug him again, or stare into his eyes? I'll never have the privilege of breathing the same air as him again? This can't be so. This couldn't have happened. He isn't really gone, is he?
Then the realization of your loss takes its toll. He truly is gone. But as I said before... I don't half believe that to be true these days. I can almost feel his presence. Someone is watching over me. It must be him, because I don't have the vaguest conception of anyone else I could ever believe in more than him. My own father... in only four more years I will grow older than you. That shouldn't be so. You were so young. You are forever young. Only 27 well devoted, driven, ambitiously lived years of your short life. You never gave up, you never gave in, and you never let me down. Even with your dying breath, I still remember your will to continue to fight to live. Two daughters only 6 years of age, and you would have done anything to live for them. No one could ever convince me otherwise, because I already know you. I am part of you, and you are a very large part of who I am today. Nothing could ever replace what you have given me... even after you passed on. Your strength, humor, love, honor, respect, drive, loyalty, compassion, and trust still prolongs your life to this day.
How do I convince myself that I am justified in dwelling on your loss each & every year on this day? You'll never be forgotten. You'll never vanish from my mind & my heart. What saddens me every day I am reminded of you... If only you could have lived to see how far I've driven myself to make you and mom proud. You can't be there for the hard times when I have to be the strong one for mom. You can't be there for the good times to see her laugh & smile, when glimmers of her old self reappear mysteriously... as if you had never gone. You can't be there for those enlightening moments that everything seems as if the wrong is being set right. Those nytes when I am alone, and I desperately die inside just to ask you what you would have thought of me. Those questions I'll never get to ask you, like how the hell you could have ever loved that creature that bore me and my twin?
Though, I must admit, I couldn't be more thankful that even in your youth of 22 years old, taking on the burden of being a single father caring for your newborn twin daughters. How you could have ever given up your dreams, which you worked so hard for, to be a successful career solider... all put aside just to give my twin and I a happy life with a loving father that you never had. Then offering your own mother to call my own... sharing that love only a Mother and son could share, and passing that love down to mom and I. She completes me, just as you completed her.
We will never, ever, recover from the pain of losing you. You will always be remembered, honored, respected, loved, adored, and missed by many.... but from a daughter to her father... Even though you are gone... I still thank you for bestowing such a beautiful life on me. I am nothing without you. So you will stay in my heart and in my mind forever, until the day I might be honored with seeing you again. I know you never meant for things to end up the way they did for Mom, Cassie, Kim, Mike, Mikey, and Myself... but you left us all the greatest gift of all... our memories of you.
"It can't rain all the time..."
Forever your faithful daughter,
Ms. EriN Elaine Sawden xxii
02. 07 .2006
R.I.P. DALE W. SAWDEN
September 20th, 1961 to February 7th, 1989