I’m so excited to get married. I am. I think about random things — first dance, vows, fun touches that we’ll add to the reception because we’re giant nerds, how pretty Chris will look — and I tear up.

Heck, I did right then.  Please enjoy this picture of Graham while I compose myself.

One thing hit me today, though, as I was making breakfast.

 This is technically yesterday’s breakfast. I write a blog of lies.

We’ll be surrounded by all of our friends and family — our mothers, our aunts, our siblings, and the friends we have our ridiculous adventures with. (And a few other people that are invited out of obligation, but whatever. Not you, of course. We want you there. Probably.)

But my dad won’t be there.  Allow me to distract you with another photo. Makeup!

Listen, I don’t mean to give anyone the wrong idea. It’s not like my dad and I talked on the phone every day, discussing our thoughts and dreams and hopes for the future. The guy wasn’t a talker. And we were very different. He had a very scientific, analytical mind, and I…do not.   Also, he liked kids, and I feel more like this about them.

He was just always there, you know? Teaching me how to ride a bike, going to my basketball and volleyball games, teaching me how to drive, supporting me when I quit my job. Acting like I just told him I preferred a different kind of music instead of a different gender when I finally came out to him. “No, I didn’t know that, but okay.”

It will be 12 years this summer that he died, so part of me is frustrated with myself. Like, come on, Monica. You knew he wasn’t going to be around anymore. And most days it’s okay. But some days — like today — it hits me. So instead off doing grown-up stuff, I blog. And look for unrelated pictures to post.

 Oh, Graham.

Chris and I will be walking ourselves down the aisle, probably. Which we would have done regardless of who was available to do it. And I guess that’s pretty fitting. He and my mom raised me to be pretty independent, outspoken, and all that business. Besides, if they wanted to give me away, they probably would have done it when I was an awful, awful teenager.

No pictures. Those were in the middle of my awkward years. But I was a BITCH.

The day of his funeral, my aunt saw a lone mourning dove on her deck. It hooted a few times and flew away. It was unusual, she said, to see one by itself, so it must have been him. So now, every time I hear one, I think of him. They’ve been really loud lately, so I hear them whenever I’m outside or have the window open. Chris texted me this week to say that one flew to her windowsill at work, hopped over in front of her, hooted a few times, and flew away. I called my mom to tell her — our second phone call of the morning, reserved for important stuff — and she said, “Well, I guess he likes her.”

  Indeed.