hearts will break

Today is a week away from my 25th birthday. Birthdays have never really been a huge deal in my family…I mean, we’ve always celebrated and had a cake and all that yummy goodness, but we never went over-the-top with presents or spent tons of cash on parties, that kind of thing. I can think of at least two instances in which my parents actually forgot my birthday until that evening or the next day. Sad at the time, but humorous now. All I’m saying is birthdays (and really all holidays) just aren’t made into major ordeals around our house.
So I should be fine, right? I mean, I’m turning 25 in a week, and just ‘cause my mom will be out of town, doesn’t mean anything. Birthdays aren’t that big, right? But I’m so ridiculously hurting. I get choked up every time I think about next week. My sister’s going to come up and spend the day with me, but that night…I can already see it, the moment I’m going to have in my bed trying to sleep. All alone in the big house, turning a monumental age, and most of all without my daddy. I don’t know why birthdays have suddenly turned into such a big deal. I could almost ask my mom not to go on her trip! I won’t, of course, ‘cause I don’t do that kind of thing, and she has to go, it’s for her business. But man, it’s hard.
I keep asking myself, “What’s your DEAL? Dad rarely even bought you a present on his own!” But it’s like I keep picturing all the times he did. And all the cards he signed over the years. He always wrote such beautiful things. Once he gave me this little blue suitcase, big enough for jewelry…more like a purse. It was terribly ugly, and even more nonfunctional than unattractive, but he picked it out himself, so it always meant a lot to me. One year he even bought me this ring he saw me admire at a store! It was under ten bucks, but the fact that he remembered me commenting on it and went back to purchase it meant the world to me. The stones fell out soon after, I’m sure, but I wore it ‘til it fell completely apart.
A few years ago, my mom dad and I and their pastor and his wife from Estes Park went to a concert together in the town where I lived (about an hour and a half away from them). It was shortly after my 22nd birthday, and my mom asked I was going to drink a beer with the guys. My dad was shocked that I was already old enough to drink. He really thought I was still 20 or younger! I mean, I’m sure if he’d thought about it he would have come up with my real age, but I was just his little girl.
God, I miss my dad. Why does it just kill me some days/hours/moments, and not others?