Ok, here’s the thing……
I only had a father for 23 years. He died of lung cancer in 1973.
Sometimes days, weeks, even months go by that I don’t think of him and I hate that. He was my father and I loved him. He deserves to be thought of more often.
I grew up in the 50’s when dads worked and mom’s took care of the house and kids. I saw my dad rarely. He worked 7 days a week at 2 different jobs and both of them were out of town. He was the hardest working man I’ve ever known. Unfortunately his work schedule didn’t leave much time for being a father. Fathers weren’t very involved in the day to day care of their children in the 50’s and our family epitomized that. My father provided financially and my mother did everything else.
My mother often told me that I looked just like my father and I liked that. I always wanted to be “daddy’s little girl”, which technically I was, (I was little, his only girl and he was my “daddy”…..well, you get the picture) but the truth was we never spent enough time together, just the two of us, for me to feel special like that. I can’t remember him being at any of my concerts or my high school or college graduations and by the time the next milestones came around, he was gone. My twin brother gave me away at my wedding and my children were born never knowing their maternal grandfather.
Despite his absence during my childhood, I always knew my father loved me. And only after I became an adult with children of my own did I realize why I felt loved by him despite his absence. He loved me enough to want me to be the best that I could be. So he showed me every day of his short life what a good and decent human being looked like. He set the bar high and I hope that if he saw me today he would be proud. That he would see more than just a facial resemblance.
I may not think of him every day or even every week, but I’m thinking of him today and I miss him. He was a hard working, kind and gentle man and he was my dad.
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