Fathers Day
Father’s Day
This Father’s day I miss him more than ever.
He would bring stability into my chaos. He would encourage and challenge. He always did.
Words will never be adequate to sum up my dad.
He raised me to always think. Wise enough to know that young people are often given to laziness, he never let my mind do that. He would often ask hard questions and expect me to back up any answers or opinions I had. If I chose to be lazy on that day, he would look sorely disappointed, till I could give a reasonable and thought out response.
When dad passed away, his doctor came to me, and in a thick German accent said, “Your father was a gentleman and a gentle man, I hope you know the difference.”
I appreciated that doctors insight to my dad. He was indeed a loving, gentle man. I am not sure he was ordinary, but he was MY dad. He had his own way.
As a child growing up, at any given moment he would say a number, and I had to know which football player on our local team that number corresponded to. To this day, the numbers 32 and 19 automatically bring to my mind Mike Curtis and Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts fame.
He had his own way with his daughters. Helping me when I was little to get dressed and struggling with my leotards (so they were called in those days), was to grab the tops by the pant waist and pull me up so I slid down into them. When I looked nice for a date or to go to church, he made sure to give a strong, loud whistle, and a good scowl to the young man at the door. There were comical times when I would come out into the living room and he would look and say, “What did you comb your hair with? The eggbeater?” and made me go back to comb it proper.
I don’t think I was an ordinary daughter either. He was often mystified as to what to do with me. I am pretty sure then, he thought that’s what mothers were for. He just let ‘mom handle me’.
We both loved music and I can’t recall how many hours he would teach me how to work his reel to reel tape recorder, and we would make recordings of music. He made sure the house was always full of country music and I knew each and every song. To this day, those old songs bring back the most pleasant memories, and I can VIVIDLY hear him singing along.
Everyone liked my father, he always had friends at work and he loved to tease every person in the family. Ask any one of us, and they will have a story of teasing each our own. He had a quiet charm.
I can see why mom fell in love with him at 15 when she first saw him bagging her groceries, and why she immediately sought employment at the same store to get to know him better.
He had three women in the household in one form or anther, each with our own whirlwind problems, he was the calm in every storm. The backbone. He was solid as a rock. Indeed life, no, even the world just hasn’t seemed the same without him. He was almost too good for this world, and in many ways, I am glad he isn’t here to experience much of the tragedy and changes that has fallen to this country.
Of course, sometimes for him, that didn’t go beyond West Virginia and our own back woods.(He required us to stand for his nation anthem, “Almost Heaven, West Virginia”).However, we did get him beyond that. To Holland, to Spain, and mom even got him to go out West. I often can’t believe it, Dad in Spain! Just was too much to even dream of one day.
He was taken from us way too early.
I love you daddy, and I was so right, words don’t even come close….
