My Daddy

So I had this wallet size black and white picture of my Dad that I carried in my wallet for years. I made the dumbass mistake a few years ago to leave my wallet on top of my car during furious Christmas shopping and it was never to be found again. I went back and looked and looked. I wasn't upset about the contents of the wallet because that could be taken care of........I was very upset about losing that pic. Then....for some reason....Mom was looking for some paperwork in the "box of doom" in the downstairs closet. It is called this because when we moved to the house we put all our important paperwork in a big box and shoved it in the closet.

YEP! Don't be envious by our sense of organization. It is something that you could only hope to achieve. It is very tiring to take all that important paperwork and put it in a giant cardboard box in a closet. I am SURE it would be safe in case of a fire! No need for fireproof file cabinets or boxes....that is just silly! (BTW-I hope all are recognizing the sarcasm!)

Anyway.....we were digging through this box and I found one more of these wallet size pics of Dad and back in my wallet it went. I was sooooo happy to have Dad with me every day. Every time I opened my wallet there was his beautiful face. BUT then again....being the clumsy dork I am...I opened the wallet with a pen in my hand and put a nice ink swatch across his forehead. Totally pissed me off! I couldn't rub it off or clean it. My perfect Dad was just hanging out in my wallet with an ink tattoo across the head. Yeah me.....DUMB-ASS!

Mom remembered the pic I had and for some reason she maybe had dreams about him and she wanted one for her wallet. I wanted to make a copy but with the wonderful ink swatch I put on him, it wouldn't be right. I went to Wolf Camera and talked to a guy there about photo-shopping the ink out. They couldn't do it there, but they could send it off. Being the last pic I had of him - Mom thinks he was right at 30 and right before he got sick and she actually made the jacket he was wearing and he died about 2 years later - I asked the guy if I could be assured that I would get the pic back. He was not so confident in that. I just sat there and stared at Dad and decided I would not give the pic up. I couldn't take the chance of losing that one where he was so young and so beautiful and healthy.

He then said, "I am so stupid!" I will scan it and put it on a CD and send it off and we will keep the pic here but it would take a few weeks. I got the call yesterday and went to pick up the pictures. I just about lost my cookies when I saw the pictures. They were so beautiful and totally captured my Dad.

They were a 5 x 7 size but the head shot had a ton of space above his head so in a 5 x 7 frame it looked like he was sitting on his knees. I had them trimmed to a 4 x 6 and found the perfect frames.

Framed them right there in the store and brought them home. I knew Mom had forgotten about what I was doing. Had to wait at least a month to get them back. Anyway...brought the framed pic home...told Mom to close her eyes and hold out her hands. I put the framed pic in her hands with the picture face down. She opened her eyes and flipped the frame.

Her first reaction was to just grab it and hold it to her chest/heart. Then she cried then she just looked at it. Mom still loves Dad so much and I love him so much too and it just sucks that his time was so short BUT I will forever love Wolf Camera for fixing the picture. Mom put Daddy's pic in her room and she said tonight that she has felt so peaceful with him watching over her. Thank you Wolf Camera for giving my Mom so much joy and for giving me so much joy!

I also have the same pic of Dad in the same frame on my desk at work now. I can't tell you how awesome it is to look up and see him.

For those of you that have your Moms and Dads still with you.....you better relish it and love it and be thankful for it. Dad's death forever changed me and Mom. I think we have secluded ourselves to a point but we also have taken such good care of each other. I LOVE my Mom sooooooo much. She has been my rock and my friend and someone I respect and love. She made sure that I was taken care of while Dad was sick and I am not sure she had anyone taking care of her. I know the family was there but I just don't know how she did it. She watched the love of her life dying while she had her daughter 2 hours away being taken care of by relatives and she would come home on weekends to see me. I believe this went on for at least a year. She deserves so much respect and love because of how she handled Dad and she still was the most wonderful Mom to me in the chaos of Dad dying. LOVE YOU MOM!

I also know that God is great and he has protected me and Mom from a lot of the actual real life that happened. We have so many years that are blank but we also know and remember how incredible our lives were when Dad was alive. I want Dad back! I want Dad back for Mom! BUT......alas.......it will obviously never be.

My Daddy was the most handsome, kind. loving, volunteering for Vietnam Marine, talented, big hearted, able to build a swing set, take me camping, teach me how to shoot a gun, lay next to me in my trundle bed and count between lightening and thunder, not step on me when I would sneak out of my room and sneak into their room and sleep on the floor next to his side of the bed, bring a king snake home in a shoe box to show me (Mom loved that! HA!), wake me up in the middle of the night and take me out to the back seat of the Nova so he could let me listen to the speakers he had installed in the back of the car so I could hear the music when we were driving, setting me on top of the refrigerator and letting me jump into his arms, taking me to the Fair only after I ate the Chicken Chow Mein (never again will I eat that, but I did so I could go), he actually embroidered (sp?) a jean jacket for me, had the best Easter Egg hunts in the house, seeing him with the big bandage on his thumb when he sliced the tip of it off cutting diamonds (he was a jeweler), Deacon of the church, Disney World fun during a hurricane, the way he loved me so much and loved Mom even more, how brave he was when he got sick and how much I wish I was more like him.

I hate that all my cousins didn't get to know him. He left us way too early and it is not fair. I can't wait to see him again. His death has forged a bond between my Mom and I that will never be broken. We are our own family and we have the kids and it is a good life, but getting this pic has brought up so many memories and it still is a big part of us to this day. December 7th (Pearl Harbor Day) this past year was another anniversary of his death. He died in 1976.

I love you Daddy and Mom......thank you for your strength and your friendship and for taking such good care of me and not giving up! You are my rock and I love you!