I was doing pretty good today, then I had to go and bump into my dad's best friend and his daughter who was my sister's best friend, and of course they asked me how I was and the daughter was instantly tearing up and I barely held myself together as I escaped to my car. And I still feel like I haven't processed it fully, every time I start to think about it too much I break down and then put a kabosh on my thoughts. The death of one of the main characters in your own life story is brutal, even having gone through it a couple times already. Maybe also because it's been a number of years since the last particularly harsh exit.
I'll take that hug. My cousin (Brad) spoke at the funeral about one of his fondest memories, how my dad used to take him, me, and my other cousin Heather in a bear hug squeezing the breath out of us. Literally. We loved it.
I don't know your dad personally, and even I'm tearing up a bit as I read that story. He will live on as long as the memories live on. It will always hurt, but take solace in the moments you have shared. If it was an inevitability, at least when your father and sister passed they were spread far apart. I think it would've stung even more if it happened so closely together.