A Tribute to My Dad

Five years ago today, my Dad passed away. While he had been sick for a long time, it was still a surprise when he died and it seemed like it all happened pretty suddenly. I still miss him every day and especially when things are going rough. He was a lot of fun, although I may not have known it at the time. I think of all of the times that he dragged me to do things with him and how much I sometimes resented it at the time. Couldn't I play with my friends instead of helping work on the car, I remember thinking back then. Now I'm grateful for the time that I had with him. Or maybe I'm hoping that Sydney feels good about all of the time I drag her to things.

We always had a lot of fun with my Dad. Well, maybe not always, but hey, who did really always have a great time with their folks! But a lot of times, we had a great time. He was a depression era child, and he brought that into his life for sure. There were things that just didn't happen in our house, we certainly didn't do things very extravagantly. But don't let that sound like a negative.

There were a lot of laughs in our house and our house was almost always a focal point of the neighborhood. We had an above ground pool and in the summer, our house was the frequent center for everyone. We had lots of pool parties and fueled by Uncle Tom's mystery jungle juice, we had a lot of bbq's when the adults decided it was easier to stay at our house then go home and cook. And, in the winter, my Dad would flood the back yard and we'd turn in into a skating rink. No jungle juice then, but we still had lots of fun!

Our house was always open for whoever stopped by and it seemed like there were always people there. I wish I had a bigger place now so I could open my house like my parents did. The spirit of hospitality that my parents showed us growing up has stayed with me today and I'm thankful for that. I hope that we'll pass that along to Sydney as well, it would be one of the best legacies of my Dad & Mom.

Dad could make me crazy to (something he's already passed along from me to Sydney!). One time, while I was visiting them with Sydney in Florida, I lost the car keys at a concert and it took me a long time to find them in the field. I got home later then I was expecting and there was my Dad, sitting up & ready to give me a lecture about being late. I think that I was 42 and he was still lecturing me about things like that.

One of my favorite stories of Sydney & my Dad actually occurred after my Dad's funeral. My father passed away when Sydney was just over 3 years old. My folks lived in Florida, so we didn't see them all the time, but Sydney spoke to my folks on the phone all the time and she has some remarkably strong memories of him. My Dad was sick for about a year before he passed away, but his death was pretty quick & unexpected when it happened. We went down for the funeral and it was Sydney's first time dealing with death, so we tried to keep her calm as much as possible.

After the funeral, Sydney & I went for a walk through their neighborhood, just the 2 of us. Near the end of our walk, she looked up at some clouds and said "That cloud looks like Grandpa watching down on us." She paused and then added "Or maybe it's a goat."

When we got back to my parents house, I told my Mom what Sydney said and we all had our first laugh of the day.

Another thing from my Dad was that we never, and I mean never, passed a cemetery without my Dad saying "You know, people are just dying to get in there." And it's really fun for me that today whenever we pass a cemetery, it's Sydney who says that!

In the five years since my Dad has been gone, a lot has happened in my life. But what I'm most saddened by is that he's not getting to watch Sydney grow up and become the great kid she's become. That's the hardest thing for me. Thankfully, my Mom is still around and doing very well and she'll be up near us in NJ this summer, so Sydney will get to spend a lot of time with her and her new beau, Bob, who we all like a lot. We're certainly happy to see my Mom happy, that's for sure.

I miss being able to talk to my Dad every Saturday when I walked to meet Kristen & Sydney at work, even if sometimes we only talked about the weather. I miss watching him play with Sydney and how excited she was when she got to fly planes with him on the computer. I miss his sense of fun and his enjoyment of life and I miss just goofing around with him.

So, rest in peace Dad. I'm sure that you're arranging all kinds of fun things for people to do in heaven and making sure everyone up there has a good laugh. I know that you look down at us and especially Sydney and you would love the person she's becoming. I miss you.

Sydney & my Dad would play on his flight simulator games for hours!