Has it only been one month??

I will say the same thing I said a month ago: time stands still...time marches on. Although in that respect it was a matter of several hours, now it is a month. One month. It feels like it has been ten years. There is a large hole in my heart--a large hole in my life. It will never be filled. The adjustment now is that I have to learn to live life with that hole.

As I look back at the last year I have no regrets. I did everything I knew how to do. I was the best "doberman" that I knew how to be. I was able to spend the last three months sleeping by his side when he was confined to bed--something I still miss. My bed is not as comfortable as the chair--or perhaps it is that my bed is no longer a place to find dad. I found comfort sleeping by his side. I am back in my room--alone. Selfish me wants to still sleep in the chair and have him back, even just for one night. I then realize that he would be brought back to intense pain, something so incomprehensible to me. He is free from that pain. I know where he is--he knows where I am--and that is how it will have to be, for a time.

In the past year I have changed. I always had a testimony. I knew the church was true. I knew I had a Savior who loved me. I knew all these things. I have found that my testimony is stronger than it has ever been. It isn't just the surface testimony--it goes much deeper--to a much more personal level. I don't know how to live without the gospel. I don't just have a Savior who loves me--My Savior loves me. He knows how I feel--the joy, anguish, sorrow, relief, numbness, pain, understanding, overwhelming love, and the intense sense of loss--He has felt it all and is comforting me when I need it. I know families are forever. I cling to this knowledge. The temple is God's house--a place I can go to feel his spirit. It is the closest place to heaven. The closest place to my dad. I have to continue to live worthily to enter His house.