We skip along from one holiday to the next, and tomorrow, it’s Father’s day. Wow. My dad died when I was 7 1/2, and it seems like lifetimes ago… but if I let my mind wander a little, so many memories flood my mind of that sweet time in my life. I fondly remember:

… my dad’s buzz cut (he used to be in the Air Force and he kept the hair style).
… my dad loved trains, he used to have a record of train sounds that he would play really loud when my Mom wasn’t home, and it sounded like the train was going thunder through our fireplace and into our living room.
… my dad seemed like a giant, he was 6′4″ and looking up at him made my neck hurt.
… I remember when he got home from work, I would daily run into his wide open arms to be hoisted up high enough to look down on him.
… one wall in my dad’s office was a huge topographical map, the whole wall, I loved to just go into his office while he was working and feel the ridges protruding from the wall.
… my dad taught me how to fish, and I’ll never forget it

My dad died of… “pneumonia,” even though it was more like a self induced version. He and my mom were in the process of getting a divorce, and he was dealing with the process hard. He drank heavily one night, appearantly forgetting about the medication he was on for some kind of ailment (this was back in 1978, so who knows what it was), and the combination of the two caused his death, but the coroner put pneumonia on the death certificate. When my dad died, my mom was in Hawaii with Danny, who later became my step-father. My brother Brad (4 yrs. my senior) and I, were staying with my mom’s cousin’s house, so we weren’t there with my dad in his last few days. Everything went in slow motion for a while after that until I finally understood he wasn’t coming back, and what it meant to me that he was gone. I grew up quickly after that, sometime I’ll blog the rest. I learned a lot from my step-dad too, and I have come to cherish him… but I’ll blog on that at another time, because it would take a little more thought and explanation.

Well, let me move on to better times! Now I can give a quick ode to my husband and the daddy to my two beautiful children!!!

…My husband is the biggest gearhead I know, he can fix anything, without even working hard at it. And when I say anything, I’m not stretching it. We will have our 10 year wedding anniversary one week from today and including the time we’ve been together before we got married, that totals 14 years… anyway, during that time, I have never seen him encounter something he couldn’t fix. He can diagnose what’s wrong with anything that’s broken or not working correctly, whether it be mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, you name it; airplanes, cars, large machinery, farm equiptment, motorcycles, swamp coolers, lawnmowers, snowblowers, tillers, vcrs, stereos, lighting, anything! It’s awesome, and it has saved us (and those he shares his gift with) a lot of repair fees.
…He of course loves and cherishes our kids, who melt him on a daily basis. He faithfully takes his turn with them to give me breaks before my head explodes, and he plays side by side with them. Out of the two of us side by side, I’m sure they think he is their favorite.
… He loves backpacking, hiking and climbing, dirtbiking, and classic cars. He has a 66 Ford Fairlane that he restored, doing all the work himself… we call her his mistress.
… He is my first love and I knew the minute I saw him that he was the man I wanted to marry.