Missing you

Today would have marked my Dad’s 84th birthday. It was on this date just one year ago he learned his body was filled with deadly and inoperable cancer. In just over a month he would be gone. I sit here a little sad. On this day I want to remember the life, not the passing. 

I miss the jokes he emailed almost daily. I miss his steady support, his advice, his sly smile. He was always there, cheering me in my pathetic efforts in sports, leading in Scouts, helping me drywall a ceiling, or lending me that particular tool I didn’t have, knowing it may never come back to his own tool box. We traded the same axe multiple times over the decades. He always asked “Joe, can I borrow your axe?”  Knowing full well it was his to start with. Of course he then kept it until I needed it again. That is what Dads do. 

He was a good one.

My dad was a very good baseball and softball (fast pitch) player. In a different age it might have brought him the college education he never got.

I know I disappointed him in many ways. He was so proud when I earned my Eagle Scout badge and did not understand why I cared so little for the achievement I refused a ceremony. Frankly, I don’t understand it either, but it is how I’m built. He supported my wishes anyway. My constant financial missteps bothered him a lot. He was disappointed I did not become a lawyer, his dream for me. He still told me that dream again the day before he died. He tried to teach me golf and failed. He was so thrilled when I became the first in the family to earn a college diploma (I didn’t want to do that ceremony either, but did it for my family).

He treated my wife like a daughter. He doted on my kids. He loved my mom with a life-long devotion. 

He loved me despite my many faults.

I miss you, Dad. Happy Birthday.