ONCE AGAIN

It was the early morning of June 12, 1991, deep asleep in bed after a dinner held the night before for the agency board, my air conditioner was going full blast from the heat of the night. At my front door in the early dawn was my brother-in-law knocking to tell me the news, the news that was never related to us, as he gave up. Finally, one of us was awake and the phone rang telling me that Dad had died and to go quickly to my parent's house.
The news was grim but expected. Dad had died!

When I got there, he lay in the hallway outside the bathroom, and everyone was waiting for me to finally show up to say goodbye before calling the coroner. I kissed him on his forehead and bid him farewell, a piece of me was going with him.

Today is the twelfth of June, Dad's anniversary of his death, and if you read yesterday's blog, you know the Eleventh of June was Mom's anniversary! To me it means something that I can't put my finger on, yet recognize the oddity of it all.

Dad was never good with remembering dates of any significance. More often than not Dad would forget a birthday or anniversary and it was Mom's he forgot. He was not a hand-holder although he did show affection to Mom, he signed his birthday and anniversary cards: "From, Tony." We used to tease him about it all. But when he did remember, Mom got a boxed card, it came in a box in the mail, Lacey and large, maybe 8x10 inches in size.

He also loved to whistle and sometimes croon in the car, he was a happy sort, always with a get rich scheme formulating in his mind, one that he inevitably dragged me into. His favorite holiday? Christmas Eve and the dinner Mom or Grandma made the famous seven fish. One other passion he had was his job, he loved his job and responsibility that went with it.

He is missed, every day I think of him. I wonder what he would have thought about the Internet, GPS and all the modern advances that life offers. I wish he had lived long enough to have met my granddaughter Darby Shea, his great-granddaughter. I think the fuss would have been astounding! I wish he could have seen his name on the TV screen in the credits, the same name I gave his grandson and namesake, my granddaughter's father. I wish he had met my daughter-in-law, he would have loved her and been very proud that she was a member of the family, a choice his grandson made.

And of course, there was his other Grandson, who recently finished college and has the future in his hands, to mold anyway he wants. Dad would have been proud indeed. He wanted us all to have a piece of higher education, and Mike would have completed the dream.

Life is indeed filled with ‘what if's', sprinkled throughout our lives, but we can't dwell on ‘what if's' only on what was and what is.

I miss you, Dad,
Love, your only son.