Happy Birthday Dad

Well, it suddenly hit me that 10 years ago today...was the last birthday that my dad never celebrated. I started thinking about this a couple days ago. And I'll be honest, at first I wasn't really too upset about it, merely pointed out the fact. Stephen and I have been sitting on a Netflix movie for about a month now. So, we decided that today was the day to finally sit down and watch it. Grace Is Gone is a John Cusack movie (very emotional) about a man whose wife just died while she was deployed. For whatever reason, the first 25 minutes of this movie just sent me over the edge and I had to take a private moment on the kitchen floor...

I've spent the past 10 years trying to understand why parents front that they have all the answers. I've discovered that there's this moment (an "oh..." moment, if you will) when you realize that you're parents just don't have a clue. Sometimes when that happens it's devastating. One moment your mom/dad is the smartest person in the world...they're...human. My moment when my dad was sick in the hospital. I was slapped in the face with a couple different realities. One of them was that the strongest man, I've ever know has been just doing his best to make it from day to day. Since then I decided that I would be more honest with my kids. If there's something that I don't know, I'm not ashamed to tell my kids that I don't know. At that point, most of the time, we try to figure it out together.

Here's 10 things about my father that I miss most:

10. Arguing with him. I realize that's a strange thing to miss, but when I used to argue with him about...whatever. Ten years ago I was a just a child, and it never dawned on me that there would be a time when I couldn't argue with him.

9. Fishing. We used to go to some lake out in the Bull Run area, rent a boat and just fish for hours. I remember when he taught me to fish. He had me using some bobber. When I asked him why he didn't use one to, he told it was because he didn't how know to use one. Haha...thanks dad.

8. Road Trips. I went with him a lot on road trips to pow-wows. We'd listen to old school county music and when we'd stop a truck stops, he was always buying new cassette tapes of "trucker music".

7. 7:00 pm. It seemed that no matter what was going on, or argument that I was trying to win, everything was put on hold at 7 pm. That's when Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy would come on. We'd both sit there and try to out do each other, for nothing more than bragging rights.

6. His laugh. Haha, most of the time he was laughing at something ridiculous, I'd done.

5. His stories. I've heard them time and time again. But the way that people would stop and listen would always make me proud that he was my father.

4. His respect for my mother. When we went out, he'd always try her drinks to make sure that all was well.

3. His singing. He was the best singer never heard over the radio.

2. Seeing him...

1. Memories that are mine and mine alone...

Happy Birthday Dad.