wishes

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I wonder if you know how much I miss you. How much I wish you could have met Greg and the girls. They have started asking for stories about "Papa". That's what we call you. I tell them about funny, silly things like your monster face; you teaching me how to make gravy - patiently; you making green eggs and ham for us which we were grossed out by and didn't eat; you trying to poison me with green milk; that your favorite color was yellow.

I also try to explain to them why you died before you could know them and why you smoked. I try to help them learn from your life the things that they should and shouldn't do, just as I do with my own life.

We enjoy talking about you backing the Blazer over the trailer; demonstrating "One Grecian Urn" for us in your trickle, trickle, trickle way; your insane love of all things baseball; your disdain for cats, except when they are snuggling on your belly and purring in your beard; you scaring off the solicitors at our front door wearing just your undies while you were working nights for so long; and your devotion to their Granny.

You would have been 68 years old today and you would have just hated being an old man. It's been just over 12 years now since you died, but I keep you with us every day.

This time of year is reflective for our whole country, and for me too. But for a different melancholy reason.