My first memory in life is of my Dad walking down the basement stairs in his navy uniform as I sat, still unable to crawl, on a blanket where my mom was doing the laundry. He looked like a God with the sun shining behind him.
Later, when I was maybe 4 or 5 and playing in the Atlantic Ocean, I was caught in a very powerful undertow, quickly being dragged across the ocean floor. My dad ran after me, grabbing me by the hair as I was starting to drop into deeper water. Later as my mom tried to get all the sand out of my hair my dad went on with business as usual, event over. Just part of life, part of the day.
When I was 10, I saw a group of teenagers jumping off cliffs into the water and I so badly wanted to join them. I pleaded with my dad who agreed to climb the cliffs with me, test the waters first and then said “you are on your own now Kiddo.” I spent the rest of the afternoon climbing the cliffs and jumping into the water.
As a typical teenager, I was not getting along with my mom and begged him to let me stay with him until things improved. He bought me a plane ticket and when I landed, I started into a rant about my mom. He informed me the plane ticket came with one condition…I was never to speak poorly of my mom. Event over, we moved on.
When I married Bill, whom he liked very much, he told me that he was happy, his job complete and he would never worry about me again.
I should have known something was up. My Dad was a recovering Dallas Cowboys fan, and our father/daughter thing was to talk post games, or email as his voice was fading following throat cancer. In the off season we would often go for months without talking, just our routine. But during the regular season (Cowboys don’t do play offs) we talked and this season the Cowboys terrible performance deserved several phone calls and emails, but nothing was coming in from my Dad.
He was in the hospital and never told me or my brother. In his desire to just do life as usual he did not let us know. With less than 24 hours left we found out and my brother managed to make one final visit, I was not so fortunate. My Dad requested no service, no fanfare. Life as usual, event over as he would say. It’s not that easy for some of us.
Strong, handsome, independent, entrepreneurial, charismatic, off color, politically incorrect, wickedly funny and smart, an amazing grandfather…he danced to his own drum. My Dad, it turned out, was also very human.
I grew up knowing that the Cowboys played in an open stadium (pre-AT&T stadium days) so God could watch his team play. Good news, God now has some very entertaining company on game days.
See you on the other side Dad.
Kiddo
xo
