Just another day
Grania on Jun 15 2008 at 10:04 am | Filed under: The Journey, home sweet home
Fathers day 1974.
I wish I remembered it. It was the last one that I had with a father.
I was 7. I loved my Dad, but that was an every day thing. He loved me right back too. Every Day. I was still living the mostly ideal life that every kid should have. I don’t remember any specific Father’s days with daddy. It wasn’t a big deal at our house. It was just another day. Every day was fun. I got hugged and cuddled and played with every day. I hugged back too. Hugs were free, and freely given. Us three kids were loved a lot. There was never any question of that.
We probably grilled on that Father’s day. We grilled a lot on the weekends. We had a big old weber kettle and a little bitty double wide hibachi. Which one got used was a toss up. Dad was frugal, the hibachi used less charcoal, but Father’s day probably would have involved steak and potatoes, so it would have been the big grill. I was the runner between the kitchen and the patio. There was a lot of running. Dishes, condiments, and whatever side dishes mom whipped up while Daddy was grilling had to be carried out. We’d eat on the patio under the apple tree. There was a homemade picnic table there, and benches that wobbled on the uneven flagstone. Everyone helped carry stuff back in, but usually I was the “big girl” that had the carrying tray (the one with the edges to keep stuff from sliding off) before the meal and made a few trips out with it fuller than it should have been. Our outside dishes didn’t break so there was never really any danger other than possibly losing a glass pickle bottle, but that never happened that I can remember, so it’s all good.
I had a very interactive Dad, and consequently my best memories are sitting in his lap reading books, or playing in the pool. More than once I helped fix whatever car he was working on too. I was the best wrench-hander-offer there ever was. I used to fake falling asleep in my parents bed before daddy came to bed, so he’d have to carry me the 15 feet across the hall into my own bed where I’d get another kiss when he tucked me in. I still remember the way he smelled.
There were always people around, and they were always smiling. My dad was a fun guy. We laughed a lot. He had natural charisma. He was handsome as all get out too. He was successful at life.
He understood what was important. He’d learned that the hard way. Before he knew my mom, his life was pretty tragic. He was badly burned as a young child. The physical scars on his hands, and his difficulty with body temperature regulation were lasting reminders of that. We didn’t have a pool because it was a fun thing to have. We had a pool because Daddy need a place where he could cool down quickly in the hot Chicago summers. His parents divorced during the Great Depression. His brothers all went off to war without him. He couldn’t enlist because of the physical problems the burns caused. Even after marrying mom, it wasn’t all roses. They had 2 miscarriages before adopting my brothers. I was an accident 20 years after they were married. Mom was told she didn’t need birth control anymore, there would never be more babies. I popped out 9 months later. They were 43 and 44 when I was born. Life wasn’t perfect, but I have so many happy memories of the time we had together.
My Dad lived passionately about life. There wasn’t a day where he didn’t appreciate what he had. He was a wild child in his younger years, but loving mom meant more to him than being wild, so he put that passion into building a life with her. My parents did their best with us kids, but the important part is that they made each other better. They were each a force to be reckoned with on their own, but together they were stronger. They became better people individually because they wanted to be better for each other. That is a testament to how powerful true love is.
My memories of my father are a child’s memories. But there have been many times as an adult, where I look back, and even though my memories are simple, I learn from them. Mostly what I learned from my Dad is how to love life, and people. I didn’t have him long enough to learn more of the little things in life, but what he gave me was probably the most important thing a kid could learn from her Daddy.
