The month of June is always a hard month for me. June is the month that my Daddy, Dred Wilder, died.

This year, although I consciously knew that this is the anniversary month of his passing and although it has been over a decade, my body still reacts like it was yesterday.

I feel the sadness, the heartache, the emptiness within the core of my being because he is no longer physically present in my life.

I feel the void of not being able to share my thoughts, my dreams, my disappointments.

I miss the power of his silence; for he wouldn’t tell me the answer to my questions but would ask me a question about what I wanted, what I needed and then get quiet until I arrived at the answer for myself.

I miss the lessons that he was teaching me without saying a word.

As the month ends, something different has overshadowed my sadness. My sadness has lifted because I now get the final lesson that my Dad’s life and death were trying to teach me.

The month of June should not be about mourning. Instead, the month of June should be about celebrating the blessing of having a daddy in my life that was special to me and me to him.

So, with the last few days that are remaining in June, I will celebrate the joy of the time that I spent with my Daddy.  Even though my son never got a chance to meet him, I will share my memories of my Dad with my son. And each time I say my son’s name “Dred Scott”, my father’s legacy lives on.