Dad and my aunt Tookie
Yesterday was my Dad’s 72nd birthday. I’ve felt a nudge to write about him for a couple of weeks, and now that I’m finally getting to it, I’m hemming and hawing. I enjoyed looking through old photos and picking out the ones I wanted to share, but deciding what to write about is stirring up sadness that I’d prefer to keep settled and quiet.
Dad was born in 1941, just 2 weeks before Pearl Harbor was bombed. I’ve been told he quit high school during his freshman year to work on his family’s farm. According to the stories, he was a very wild teenager.
I believe he was 15, and mom 13, when they started dating. They were crazy for each other, and they married 5 days after her 18th birthday, thanks to having a bun in the oven.
They still loved each other when he died of a sudden heart attack one month after his 51st birthday.
That was just 2 months after my wedding, and I felt like I lost half my world. My new husband and I had a very unusual first year of marriage, as I was preoccupied with rebuilding my sense of self – one that didn’t include the father I had adored every day of my previous 27 years.
The last picture I took of Dad on the last day I ever saw him – the morning after my wedding, with my maid of honor Polly
When I started writing this post, I thought I might include a line or two about the work I had to do when I discovered a few years ago that I had been harboring deep pain about some of his actions when I was a child. But that doesn’t want to happen. The bottom line is this: my dad was a good man. He was funny, handsome, hard-working, easy to love, and down-to-earth. He was an imperfect yet wonderful husband and parent. I was blessed to be his child, and deeply blessed for his telling me more than once, “Deep down, Kel, you know what you want.”
I miss you, Dad. Happy belated birthday.
