Three years ago today, I lost my Daddy. While I miss him everyday, today I miss him a little more. I know how proud he was of me, my family, my accomplishments, still, I wish he were here to remind me. I wish he knew Ava and Wes, and I know he worried about Taylor. I often find myself wishing he could see him now, I know he would be very proud of him too. I find myself all too often in situations where I am not sure how to do something, or what tool I need... not too many months before the end I found myself at Menards looking for a toilet flush handle. I never knew how many different kinds of handles where available for flushing toilets. I grabbed my cell, and called Dad, who told me the plastic kind would break and I be back buying another one, but the weird metal kind might not work in my toilet. True, I could have come up with these things myself, and now I do all the time since I can't just pick up the phone, but I miss the conversation, the relationship, the ability to depend on someone else's expertise.
Dad loved to fish. I don't think I ever really shared his love, but some of my fonder memories are on little fishing trips. Once my friend and I wanted to go fishing, so Dad gave us poles and tackle, and we went off. He put worms on our hooks, since I never liked that part, and I flung the pole back and whipped it forward. At which time the entire pole, minus the handle I was still holding, catapulted into the water. Even though he had hundreds of fishing poles, he was still so upset that this particular pole was gone. I always wondered what good the pole was if the handle could just fall off, as it had... To me, the loss of that pole just wasn't such a tragedy.
Dad was 42 when I was born. I always loved this picture of him partially because I never knew him to be so young, polished, and handsome. In my memory, Dad always had greasy, dirty hands from tinkering and working all day. His hands were big and rough with calluses from years of physical use. My brother Michael reminds me of this side of Dad (not just his greasy dirty hands...). Dad was very hard working and right up to his last months, did things that everyone said he shouldn't. Dad made things work when it seemed that things just couldn't work. In this way he was an artist and engineer. I remember in seventh grade I had an assignment to build a switch. I had no idea how to build a switch, not even from the wealth of information I had been "taught" by my teacher. Dad, I think, loved this assignment. In a matter of hours he had designed, gathered the parts, manufactured, tested, and perfected my switch. (Yes, I helped, though me screwing in a couple of screws hardly allows me to claim the idea as mine.) I still have this switch, an ingenious use of curtain rod holders, screws and a christmas twinkle light. I love to tinker, thanks to my Dad. I like to try new things, things that I can do with my hands, create, manipulate. I am always proud of what I can do, even if my finished product is totally flawed.
This was one of my best days. Jon and I were engaged for four years before we got married. Dad always worried that he might not make it that long, and experienced a number of ups and downs in his health during that time. Just two days before our wedding he was retaining water really bad in an exacerbation of his CHF. Adjustments to his diuretics caused him to loose 15lbs almost overnight. His tux was almost too big on the day of my wedding. Dad was always tired as a result of this disease process. I had not considered that fact when I chose the song for my dance. The song was only about half way through when Dad told me that he was too tired to keep dancing. I told him it wasn't a problem, and we left the dance floor, a move that I think probably confused our guests, but serves as a memory for me of how hard his disease was to live with. It helps me live with the decisions that I made for him in his final days. Decisions that I believe he would have made for himself if he could have, decisions that were some of the most difficult I have made in my life.
This photo was a snapshot that was taken the last time all of us where together for a family gathering. Its a terrible photo, technically speaking, and if we all had known it would be our last, we would have done more, I think. Maybe moved the party outdoors where the photo could have been far better. I try to take photos of my family more because of this, and I try to make each photo my best, because I never can know if it might be my last.
Just a few of the lessons my father gave me, and select memories, on the anniversary of one of the worst days of my life.
June 23, 1939-April 26, 2007
