Original writing: May 6, 2018 Sunday 7:04 a.m.
Today would have been Daddy’s 85th birthday. Today is also the fifth anniversary of Granny’s (as known to my children) death in 2013. My step-mom passed away (died is such a jolting word to me) May 6, 2013. A few short days later my youngest daughter graduated high school. A little over two years later, on September 12, 2015, my dad passed away.
From where I sit writing this morning, I can see the lilac bush from my Dad’s place that my husband transplanted for me. I can see it out the window of my sun room. I don’t need reminders of my Dad because he is always with me but seeing the lilac bush every day reminds me that he is near in spirit.
For twenty-nine years prior to losing my dad, we would always get together as a family to celebrate his birthday. I am convinced that we never missed a year. For many years, I lived in another state, but I moved closer to “home” when my oldest was six months old. Every year after that, we had a birthday lunch or dinner.
He was the patriarch and rock of this family. I spent some time yesterday listening to Johnny Cash and indulging in the emotion that was welling up inside me. I see it as better to give yourself those moments rather than try to stifle them because if you do, you can have the moments and then keep going.
I have been completing jigsaw puzzles of late. What, you ask, does this have to do with your Dad? Daddy always tried to bring us things (bread and rolls from the day old bread store, vegetables from his garden, and toward the end, jigsaw puzzles) especially during those last couple of years. I have five puzzles that he brought the last time. I know it is odd, but when I work on completing those puzzles it somehow brings him closer to me. I can sit and work on one, mentally or verbally talk with him while I work, and have a sense of calm and peace while challenging my brain.
The last few years it seems I have said goodbye to so many people. I am at that age (56) where I suppose that is to be expected. Expected or not, it is hard to do. I am very blessed and fortunate that Daddy had 82 years and that I had him for 53 of those years. He survived the Korean War (The Chosin Reservoir campaign especially) and the Vietnam War. He was a twenty-year Army career man. Of course, I have the “I wish”. I wish I would have asked him more about his early life. I wish I would have written down the stories he told of his life as a young man, as a military man (when he finally arrived at a point in his life when he could actually discuss it), as a father and grandfather. I didn’t, but that is okay. I know he loved us, and I know he knew we loved him.
So, today, on May 6 this year, I won’t be fixing a dinner for him after conferring with my siblings about what to buy for the man who is frugal beyond belief, for the man who grew up poor but made a good life for himself and his family, for the man that we dearly miss every day.
Instead, I will get my cup of coffee (something he had every day at 8:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.), sit here in the sun room with the windows open, listen to the birds sing, and gaze at the lilac bush while I tell him, “Happy birthday, Daddy”.