memories of my dad

it's odd to consider how long it has been since my dad passed away. twenty years feels like a lifetime ago. my life is so different than it was then, and the place i now call home is not a place my dad ever knew. that feels strange. my kids won't get to meet him, but i hope that one day they want to know about him. my dad wasn't perfect, but despite his faults i never doubted that he loved me and was proud of me. he was convinced i had mounds of potential and could grow up to be anything i wanted to be. that's not the message everyone gets from their dad, so i am thankful for that. 

my dad spent his career as an aerospace engineer at mcdonnell douglas. he worked on lots of different planes, but the blue angels were always my favorite. whenever i see a fighter jet i always think of him. i remember the suits he wore every day to work and his 1980's plastic pocket protector of pens and such. i remember that he and my mom met for lunch every day of the the week. on sundays he sang bass in the salem choir from the back row of the balcony, and i often joined him there. during sunday school hour he went to dunkin' donuts and sometimes brought me back a bag of donut holes for the ride home. he played the trumpet during our sing-a-longs on christmas night. he had a blue riding lawn mower and loved owning a boat. i have many memories of our yearly trips to gulf shores, always towing the boat back and forth. we went to indian princesses together and he taught me kemo kimo, which i sing to my own kids now. their knowledge of their grandpa may come in bits and pieces, but they already share that song.

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ten years

my dad passed away ten years ago today. i got the news with a middle of the night phone call from the funeral home, not the hospital where he had been for the previous few days, nor the skilled care facility he was living in. i wasn't supposed to find out that way. the poor woman on the phone naturally assumed i already knew, she had no idea she was the one breaking the news. it wasn't the way it was supposed to be, but most of the previous year had felt like things weren't the way they were supposed to be. twenty three year olds aren't usually charged with the care of an ailing parent and faced with the decisions that brings. but life doesn't always happen the way we expect it to, in fact, it rarely ever does.

this all happened back in the days before social media, when people communicated through the ancient art of mass e-mail. i sometimes wish i had been blogging back then so i would have some sort of record of what happened during that crazy year. but it's probably just as well that i don't. maybe it's better to not remember every detail, every hard decision, every feeling of uncertainty. besides, i don't think my dad would want to be remembered for that last year of his life anyway. the lifetime of memories before that year were more important.

my dad wasn't perfect, but he was still my dad.  

today we went to the funeral of a close friend of the dyer's. their families grew up together, took vacations together and have more hilarious stories than i can keep track of. it's going to be a hard year for them. they've lost a husband, a dad and a papa bug. life doesn't always turn out the way we expect it to, and sometimes life is just really, really hard. but God is still good. of that we can be sure.

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the stamp story

our wedding invitation stamps caused quite a stir (and i'm sure the post office just loved me). a number of people asked about them, and many wondered if they had been the only lucky ones to receive them. the story is that the stamps were originally a collection that belonged to my dad. for vintage stamps like these to be worth money, they typically need to still be attached in a large sheet. at some point in the past, my dad's stamps had been torn apart and after a little research we found that aside from a possible small exception here or there, they were basically only worth the postage printed on them. so in what i believe was a stroke of genius, i decided i would hold onto the stamps and use them to mail my wedding invitations one day.

and that day arrived. the postage was free, the envelopes were memorable, it sparked many a conversation and it brought a little part of my dad into our day. i say that's a win.

and just for fun...a little peek at our invitations

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