Musings on topics of small or large importance. Especially partial to subjects that include baby boomers, public figures, friends, Corporate America, the Denver Broncos, NASCAR, my previous home towns of New York City and Columbia (Maryland), stupidity (mine and others'), diets and health and who knows what else!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Remembering and Smiling, Not Crying, on Father's Day

I will be glad when Father's Day is over, and the ads for all the things men love or are supposed to love end for another 11-1/2 months. My wonderful dad passed away 15 years ago, two months after Father's Day. I miss him every day but, of course, especially on Father's Day.

We (my mom and I) had him on borrowed time for many years. In the early 1970s he was shot with a .45 at close range in a robbery attempt at his business. He conked the guy over the head with a little quart can of paint he had in his hand, which made the guy's second shot miss my dad entirely. Fortunately, the one that hit him was a through-and-through in his shoulder, and he spent the night at the hospital that best treated gunshot wounds because they got so many. We all got lucky.

Then in he early 1980s he got diagnosed with prostate cancer. He treated it and eventually was deemed to be cancer-free. But a decade later it came back, wreaked incredible havoc with him as it spread, and his last year or two were hard on him and very hard on my mom, who took care of him.

But on that Father's Day in 1994, we had no idea that two months later he'd be gone.

I came out from New York to see him in Phoenix for Father's Day. I can't remember what I gave him for Father's Day but I wrote him about 100 "thank-you" items for every big and little thing I could think of, and that touched him greatly. I am so glad now that I got to express to him how I felt about the many things that made him special to me.

My mom and dad were married for nearly 47 years. Happily. They were a great example to me of what a marriage and a happy family should be. My dad wrote my mom creative little notes several times a week and gave her many, many cards. My favorite card that I still remember was (front) "I like you more than I like chunklit covered grab crackers." (inside) "And I really like chunklit covered grab crackers."

This past week my mom came upon a huge bag of all of those cards and notes that she'd kept, and she spent a couple of hours laughing and crying and remembering. Her significant other of the last decade was encouraging and understanding. (How rare!)

I miss my dad's wisdom. "Nothing is free." "The only thing constant in life is change." "Everything works out for the best." I miss his humor. He was big on puns, he teased about everything, and he lived to make my mother laugh. I miss his heart. He could be crusty on the outside but was a mushheart inside. I miss the great example that he was. He only finished high school but was self-educated and I could never stump him with my questions. He knew something about everything. He could make, fix or build anything. (He must have hated that throughout my brief marriage, my husband paid people to do nearly everything, nearly up to changing the lightbulbs.) My dad was my problem-solver, my entertainer and my inspiration.

Rather than focusing on the fact that he's gone, I'm trying to be grateful for the extra years we had with him that could easily have been denied us. My dad -- and my mom's husband -- was a man we love to remember...so as I do today, I will not cry. I will smile.