The holiday season has passed and it was a nice couple of days filled with Christmas cookies and socializing. Although, the holidays are very tough for me because I miss my dad and I wish he was here.

My dad was easily my best friend. He drove me to the bookstore, went to all of my school plays and he was the radio announcer at all my ice shows. My world changed in 2005 when I came home from a field trip and found out my dad had been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. Pancreatic cancer has one of the lowest survival rates. It’s also rather difficult to treat because surgery is out of the question. The pancreas is surrounded by the liver and the gall bladder so the metastasis rate is naturally high (metastasis = cancer spreading). He died a year after his diagnosis. I look at how lucky I am that he survived a year. 9 years have passed since his passing and I still get emotional about various things. I don’t think that feeling will ever go away because my dad was such an important part of my life and he still is. Those who know what it’s like going through the holiday season without a family member know this feeling.

Even though I miss my dad, I try to not let that affect my holidays. Christmas Eve is always spent with my mom’s side of the family. Christmas is spent with my dad’s side and we go ice skating and eat a lot of food. As for presents this year, I am loaded on fuzzy socks, have gift cards to do some shopping with and I’m currently reading Firefight which I received this Christmas. Overall this holiday season was pretty great.