Somehow the World Moves on Without You.

One year and three months exactly that's how long he's been gone. It still hurt yet no one seems to care. The way they all talked is as they moved on just days after his death. Stephanie hasn't moved on. Stephanie looked out the window to the cars passing by as she thought about him. She can't really say they were that close in the years leading up to his death, but I suppose she was closer to him then her twin was. Jessa just wanted to pretend he never existed. Stephanie didn't understand that after all he was their father.

For 11 years he watched them grow up day after day until the divorce. Stephanie took it hard not really believing that it could happen her reality shattered. The life of a normal childhood thrown out the door like he was. No longer did he want to walk the old railroad tracks, playing video games together, and fishing trips to the river became once a week. Jessa gave up on him early but coming back periodically just to appease her therapist. She choose to rather cling to their mother's side she abandoned their father. Stephanie tried to meet him as often as she could wanting to still have a father figure in her life. Unfortunately, as Stephanie left the fifth grade entering the sixth her visits with her father turned into once a month. Her father going on to live homeless for years after.

One year after the divorce he started seeing someone. All Stephanie saw was a gold digger with a fitting name, Ruby. Ten years her senior the father fell in love with a fake body and an even faker relationship. They would date off and on for the next four years with her sleeping around with several men. The rare fishing trip father and daughter now had were filled with talk about Ruby and how she was always cheating but he still loved her all until She disappeared from his life only texting him once saying I'm having a baby, a boy, it's yours. Stephanie didn't believe it knowing Ruby was just wanting money. The father unfortunately always wanted a son, no longer satisfied with his tomboyish daughter he turned his back on her eclipsing her heart letting it freeze to try and chase a woman that wanted nothing more than a sugar daddy.

Seventh grade after asking her father to come to various meets and special events Stephanie refuses to meet with their father. The twin's mother had other plans. Every other Sunday their mother would make them dress up and send them to their father's church. An odd bunch of people meeting behind a Retail store using their spare building. Jessa warmed up to their father even going on to help instruct the younger children when she was there. Stephanie however grew more distant and colder being forced to a place she did not like. Her mother would find a boyfriend and later husband in the neighbor. The father and boyfriend would fight many times over the years. Hating each other till their last breath.

Freshman year it was his second heart attack. Slowly Stephanie had reconnected to her father over Facebook occasionally meeting I person to catch up. He had a good friend now one who would stay by his side for the rest of his life. Betty, an older woman kind and always had her head on straight. Helps Stephanie's father get a small rundown house, but it was roof over his head and a beat-up old car, but it got him places. Betty would change him. Stephanie would come to like Betty knowing that while everyone joked Betty was dating her father Stephanie knew that Betty did not love him that way. Jessa would not talk to her father again until he was on his death bed.

Graduation came and went Stephanie's mom and new stepfather would move to the country an hour away from where she grew up. Stephanie would talk to her dad multiple times throughout her first two years of college bouncing from the dorms to her aunt's place before dropping out before the third year due to lack of funds. During that summer, her stepfather would pass away one year after that Stephanie would move to the country to help her mother take care of the property. Visiting her father once again became rare, but this time they talked on Facebook. Every time they talked he would always say how proud and how much he loved his daughter.

Stephanie would grow worried about her father's failing health before she moves. Three heart attacks, two seizures would have Stephanie worryingly asked if something were to happen how would her father like to be buried. On July Fifteenth of her Twentieth year of life around Three pm Stephanie would get a call from the hospital saying she needed to come right away. Little did she know she would never hear her father's voice again.

Stephanie arrived first and would be alone for five hours until her sister got there. All she knew was her father was in a coma. She begged and begged for him to wake up and talk to her. Even saying that Daddy's were supposed to be there for their little girls in hopes it might stir him. After several stressful hours waiting and even more stressful phone calls her and her twin learned that her father had suffered two more heart attacks and another seizure in the time of three hours. Over the next week the doctors would monitor him coming to a grave conclusion.

The twins were given the hardest decision anyone must make. To try and wake him up or to let him pass on. The problem with waking him was that he could wake up a vegetable or he would never be the same and would constantly be in and out of the hospital more then he already was. On July Twentieth, he passed away a week shy of when the twins lost their stepfather.

One year and three months exactly that's how long he's been gone. Everyday Stephanie thought of her father and every day she thought the world still moves on without you.

He was 56 and the last message he ever gave his daughter was I love you and I'm proud of you.