Grief (is the Thing with) Feathers

I miss being Dad.
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Dad was a character that loved and lost and has to learn that love comes with loss.
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Dad does not look at Crow or Crow. Crow knows how Dad should be for maximum audience impact, but he apologises for directing Dad’s actions too much. Crow also apologises for being a lousy director. Dad, the Boys and Crow tell her she is wrong and that she’s been excellent. Crow and Crow help Dad with his words.
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On the day itself, the family, just done with crying, is at the funeral in their house and the children are asleep.
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Everybody in the audience listened to Dad as he told his story.
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I recognise an unhealthy catharsis when I feel it, but I relish it anyway.
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Dad hugs his Boys (actually two girls) who have been in the auditorium-lounge-practice room-hall journey with him. Dad says in front of the small audience, he could learn a lot from Crow, and acknowledges that it is both Dad and Shao who are learning, a lot from Crow.
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Dad yells into the audience, ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
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and the children (and Crow and Crow) were a tide wall of laughter, laughing and (cut) tumbling and dancing and spinning and screaming
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I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
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And someone in the audience sniffles, probably sinus problems, but we imagined their watery eyes anyway. It is over.
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The older Boy amusedly points out in the dressing room, “You’re really huggy today, Dad.” Dad laughs heartily. The younger Boy joins Dad for an extravagant buffet and they take selfies because younger Boy just got into the habit of it, and Dad doesn’t hate how he looks in those.
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I miss having Dad as a reason to sit with my head in my hands. Or having a proper reason to want to sit in a chair in the corner of the stage. Or having a proper reason to feel sad, instead of “I did not talk to anyone all day and I didn’t want to but it’s made me depressed”.
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I wonder if I’ll find Dad somewhere else, through my own Dad or through a book or through another character or simply through the acceptance that it is okay to not be well.