I'm sorry to hear about your loss I can only imagine the emotions from it. I think when we love people though, they never really leave our hearts. they stay with us throughout life, and things are actually better for us in that we were blessed to have known them.
I hope you find strength, and push through the tough initial stage. wounds always sting before they heal.  

condolences on your loss. my father died when i was 4yo and he was 29yo (i think). my mother died many many years later at 58yo. both taken away by different types of cancer. anyway i made a artwork dedicated to my father posted in my dA galler here: Faith 04 The Other Shore . life goes on and the best we can do is go on too but never forget  those we loved and loss and keep their memory alive in our hearts. take care, keep well and have a great life, which your father that loved you is hoping for you even now.

I am sorry to hear 

I've never had anyone close to me that I've known die. And even though I think now how I would actually welcome their deaths in a way, I know I would miss them and probably take it really hard as well.

I remember when my first dog died. She was so sick, couldn't see, couldn't tell where we where anymore. The day before we took her to get put down, we took pictures with her, and she didn't know where she was or where we where, which I would often joke about while we were doing it. It was all a joke to me. When we were at the vets, and they put the poison in her and her eyelids slowly closed for the last time, despite it all being a joke to me I almost lost it. I was fighting back tears. And I turned to my brother and was going to say to him, "Dude, I'm trying so hard not to cry right now", as I felt the tears start to come up.

But when I turned to him, he was already full on bawling. His face was drenched with tears, and I couldn't for the life of me understand how I missed that. But the irony of what I was going to say to what I saw, made me forget I was about to start crying and I busted out laughing. Because that's who I am, I find comfort in the irony and the little things, jokes, I laugh, that's how I cope with death.

Everyone is different. Everyone has their own way, that's as natural as breathing. You are doing whatever it is you need to cope, and their isn't anything wrong with that.

You don't have to handle it. You are handling it. These things are both true.

It's not ok when someone we love, someone who was a central part of our lives, dies. And it never will be. In one year or ten years or thirty years, you will wake up and think about how you miss your dad and maybe that will bring a tear to your eye or maybe not. The dead will always be dead, and nobody can change that fundamental reality or step in and make it right.

After a while, your stomach will growl and you'll eat something. You'll get thirsty and drink some water. You'll get tired and sleep. The sun will come up and then set and come up again, and you will face another day in which nothing is ok and yet everything is still continuing on despite that, sweeping you along with it. This is how you both handle and do not handle this new and painful reality you're living in. You endure, and eventually, you cope. You learn to value the good without being destroyed by the bad. You let the years roll by and find new loves and dreams and hopes and goals. And then one day you realize that while you were thinking you could not handle it, you did and are and will continue to do so.

My mom passed away three and a half years ago and I was sure it was the end of the world. But it wasn't. It's not the end of your world either. You'll be ok. Give it time.

Aw I'm always here if you need to talk, and of course you miss him he was your dad don't feel bad!