Daddy.

Today would've been my daddy's 65Th birthday. That means that it's been 7 years since he passed away...well, almost because he passed in June, I believe, but yeah...close enough.
My dad was a very strange man that I, unfortunately, have inherited a lot from. We're both really good at hiding our emotions, even though I have a lot more temper than he did and I tend to blow up whereas he just removed himself from the conflict.
My entire childhood he was more like a lamp than an actual dad; he never really helped raise me and we were not very close at all.
He wasn't really a good husband to my mother (I know, it's a two-way street and she wasn't a good wife, either) and even cheated on her on several occasions (she cheated on him, later on and got her revenge, I suppose), which only drove him and I even further apart.
After they got divorced (I was 19), my dad had a hard time keeping in contact with me and it was one-way communication for a long while because, even if I wasn't close to him, he was still my dad and I didn't want to lose contact with him.
At some point, I had to level with him, though and I told him that if he didn't want to, he didn't have to talk to me, but that if he did, he would have to initiate contact as well.
Throughout his life, our relationship was awkward. Probably because we both had a hard time sharing our emotions.
Before he passed away, however, he came to live with me because he'd had open heart surgery and I wouldn't let him stay at his apartment alone. It was from my apartment he called 911 on the day he had a blood clot in his heart.
He was on my couch, dying when he called 911.
The last time I talked to my father, we fought. We fought because he was in more pain than anyone could imagine and he hurt my feelings. I cried and yelled at him, before I left.
A couple of hours later, the hospital called me and told me to come immediately.
He died the next morning at 3.55am.

I've worked through everything and I don't blame myself for fighting with him that morning and I know that our fight didn't have anything to do with him dying. He would've died anyway.
But today, I've spend a lot of time, thinking about my daddy. Not with regret but more with the reality of what we had.
We didn't have the ideal father/daughter relationship - not by a long shot, but it wasn't just his fault. We were both responsible for that.
I wonder what would've happened if I had just randomly hugged him.
I can't change the fact that I never did, but that doesn't mean that I don't wish that I had.

I love you, daddy and I miss you every day.