daddy issues

after all this with my dad, i have an even greater urge to go back to childhood. i've always had that urge, at least since being "grown up," and even when i was little i was so sad about having to grow up someday.
so now that my daddy's gone, it's kinda like i'm trying recapture anything that reminds me of him. and since i spent 24 years as his little girl, most of my memories of him involve just that...being little. i have the strange desire to play house and barbies and read old stories. i want to climb in trees and draw stick figures on scrap paper, and eat cheetos and sour gummy worms for every meal. and yeah, i've pretty much been wishing i could do all those things for the last several years, but the burning in my heart to be young and free again is only amplified by the loss of my dad.
i miss him so much. so much that sometimes i can't even believe he's really gone. it's like he's on a really long trip or something, and when he gets back (in ten or twenty years), he'll give me a gigantic hug and let me crawl into his lap, while he sings me Jellyman Kelly in his best james taylor impression...which is always nearly identical to the real thing.
is it wrong to feel that? i keep thinking, "i have to get this engrained in my stubborn head. he's gone, and he's never coming back to this world." his hugs, and his smelly feet, and his wild eyebrows, and his perfect laugh, his sarcasm, his singing and his voice are all gone. no more. i hate thinking about those things. that they're gone, i mean. and people keep saying stuff like, "all of that will live on in you and your mom and brother!" i appreciate so much that people are trying to comfort, but those things, his laugh and his voice...they were individual to him. and even though we can mimic, and recall, and remember and honor for the rest of our lives, merely talking about the very physical and physiological parts of my dad will never be enough.
i could go on and on and on and talk about him and my broken heart for hours or days, but i have a feeling that's not what makes the healing happen. i have a feeling the only, and i mean only thorough healing we can get at all when we lose someone we love so much, must come directly from God alone.
so here's to prayer and petition. here's to joy that comes in the morning...and here's to those who mourn. for we will be comforted.