Meet you at the top of the mountain...

Tomorrow it will be eight months since my Daddy died.  I miss him so much and I know Kate does too. She doesn't express her grief the same way I do but I still know she is grieving. 

Thursday she asked me to tell her a story that my Daddy made up for her and told her often. It was hard to get through the story as we drove to school but I managed to tell her the story without crying until the very end.

I want to share the story with you. 

When Kate was two and a half she had a love/hate relationship with dragons.  Dragons scared the munchkin to death but at the same time she loved to look at pictures of dragons and watch movies with dragons in them. She even aspired to be a dragon when she grew up!

One weekend we were visiting my parents in Fort Payne and Kate was stalling going to bed.  My Daddy asked her why she didn't want to go to sleep and she told him she was afraid a dragon might get her.  My Daddy didn't miss a beat; he told her this story:

Once upon a time in a land very close by there were many, many dragons that roamed over the land and on the mountain.  The people of the land were very frightened by the dragons and stayed inside their houses so not to be terrorized by these fire-breathing creatures.  Well, one day I put on my hat, laced my boots and took to my steed. I captured all the dragons in the land and I took them up to the top of the mountain. One by one I locked the dragons in a cage and then I left the mountain top and came home.  At home I found Meemee and she told me of one little lost dragon.  We hunted down the one little dragon that had escaped. Meemee caught it with her lasso and together we took up to the top of the mountain and locked it up in the cage with the others.  When you are twenty-one I'll meet you at the top of the mountain and we will release the dragons together.

It wasn't until I got to the last line of the story that I teared up. It was at that point I truly realized her loss.  He will not be here to meet her at the top of the mountain when she is twenty-one.  I believe that she will meet him again someday but I still grieve that she only got to spend four short years with one of the most creative, kind, generous, eccentric, witty and loving people in the world.  I miss him everyday of my life and I know Kate does too. I love you Daddy! RIP~ Henry Samuel Killlian, Sr. 07/21/1940-02/18/2011