Can you believe it? I’m blogging
twice in so many days! But please don’t get used to it—I have a reputation of
procrastination I must uphold! ;)
Today is Father’s day and I wish
all the dads and all the father-figures out there a very happy day. I hope you’re
celebrating with those that love you and if for some reason you’re separated
from your families, I hope that you will be together soon.
As for those whose dads have gone
too soon—like mine did—I hope you have memories to cherish of them. I know I do.
My dad passed in ’83. I was 18 when he died suddenly of heart
failure, which I’ve always found ironic because he had one of the biggest
hearts around. Now the memories I have may differ from my brothers as well as
the viewpoint of someone that just starting thinking herself as a ‘grown up’ but
I saw him as a strong man, physically but most in character and
conviction. He was patient and kind but
could be so stubborn. He spoiled me like only a father could with his only
daughter.
When I was younger, while I’m
sure we had many father/daughter moments, the one that clearly sticks out in my
memory was taking a drive with him to pick up my mom from work. We’d drive to
the subway station, which took him about 15-20 minutes, a fairly short time but
the thing was that was ‘our’ time.
Growing up with four brothers it was difficult to get a parents
undivided attention. So those 15-20 minutes a day was very precious to me. We
could talk about anything--I could ask anything and nothing was too silly.
Sometimes we didn’t need to say a thing and we just knew that it was nice being
in each other’s company. Oh man, I used
to resent it when my little brother would tag along. I loved the bro but like I
said this was my time with dad.
Dad was also on top of world
events and politics—never a day went by when he didn’t start off reading the
newspaper or seeing the news at the end of the day. As a result, he was a very
social person and loved to meet and talk to people. (An aside about this, I
didn’t know until after my dad passed that he was such a ‘social butterfly’, it
was when neighbours would stop me to give condolences and tell me how they will
miss him and that he used to talk to them every afternoon as he took his daily
walk, that I realized just how many people he touched.)
Dad loved to garden. But I’m not talking about a couple of
straightforward beds of flowers. Oh no, he cultivated some of the most
beautiful rock gardens one would ever see outside of an ‘official’ garden. I have yet to know anyone that has ever come
close to what he could do with dirt, rocks and flower seeds. Our back and front
yards had some of the prettiest flowers I have ever seen. He was creative and
his eye and mind could ‘see’ the potential of what would be beautiful. Not sure
if gardening was where he got his patience but I’m pretty sure it played a
strong part of it.
I’m not sure about others that
have lost their dads and while there are many things I missed about him, the
two things that I missed the most, especially when he was first gone, were
hearing his footsteps on the stairs—I could tell distinguish everyone’s
footsteps, mom being light and spritely to my brothers’ always racing up and
down the stairs to dad’s, solid and heavy and sure. It was very strange when
all of a sudden I didn’t hear it any more. Very strange and very sad.
The other was my dad’s
voice. He had one of the deepest voices
one would ever hear. Even my oldest brother with his very deep timber didn’t
come close. LOL dad rarely had to raise
his voice to get his message across but man oh man, if you didn’t know him
you’d probably shake in your shoes! But I hate that now I can’t remember how he
sounded as I used to do.
He left my life much too soon but
I was lucky in the fact that I had no doubt of his love for me. Today I honour
him and I hope he knows how much I still miss him, especially on this special
day.
‘Til next time,
Jacs xx
