He is in my heart.

I wanted to share a story here that I shared yesterday on my Instagram account. I shared it because it spoke to a piece of my heart that needs healing, that needs some sense of understanding. My story seemed to resonate with my followers and touch them as it did me.

Today my Dad has been gone for 4 months. 4 heartbreaking months. I struggle to understand, how am I suppose to explain to Anna, an innocent 4 year old, when I don't understand this all myself. Some days wrapping my head around his absence is too much, I just can't believe it. I just want to wake up from a really terrible dream. 

I purchased this globe yesterday so that I could spray paint it gold. When we got it home Anna & I started talking about how amazing our planet is, who lives where, what the oceans are, etc. She asked all kinds of questions and kept saying "Wow". 

She then asked me where Heaven was.

I froze and immediately started to cry.

I told her Heaven wasn't a place on the Earth. That we couldn't go there. I then realized I needed to try and make sense of that for her. I talk about Heaven all the time, I talk about it like it's a place, Papa went to Heaven. To her, if Papa went to Heaven then we should be able to go see him.

She asked where it was then.

I walked her to the window and pointed to the sky. 

Heaven is up there somewhere. Somewhere up there, far away with the moon & the stars & the sun. We all see the same ones. They are the same moon & stars & sun that Papa sees from Heaven. That we can't go see Papa but that he can come see us in our dreams.

She looked at me as I spoke through tears and told me not to worry. 

Don't worry. I keep Papa in my heart. That's where he is.

And just like that she was off to go play. 

My heart is broken right now and I struggle to see inside it. I am put together on the outside but inside I am raw.

I speak to the stars constantly, I feel a sense of peace when I look up to them. I feel closer to him, that maybe he is there with me as I talk to him and take in the night sky. 

Yesterday I was left at the window sobbing realizing that maybe she is the one teaching me and not the other way around.