Thursday, January 2, 2014

Never Far

Today is the 25th anniversary of my father's passing from this life into the next.  Today is also the first time in many years that I have not had an idea for a blog post about my Dad and what he meant to me and how very much I miss him.  There are no thoughts of Bing Crosby songs that he used to sing, no poems, no thinking back to good times we had.  I'm drawing a complete blank today.  And that bothers me.  A lot.

I reminded myself that never a day goes by when I don't think of my Dad:  when a co-worker tells a funny story about his Dad; when I see an older gentlemen in bib overalls at a hardware store; when I hear an old country song; when I remember something about my Dad that is so sweet and sentimental, and it will make me smile.  My father may have been gone for 25 years now, but he is never far from my thoughts.

I don't share stories about my Dad at my new job.  For some reason, I've started wanting to keep these things to myself.

What I do know for sure is that love is the one thing that transcends time.  We can still feel it even when the person we love is gone.  And I hope that it is the one thing that we can take with us into the next life.

And I like to think that somewhere my Dad is thinking about a little girl with pigtails who used to write him notes and draw him pictures and leave them on his desk.  A little girl who was always "a day late and a dollar short" much to his chagrin.  A little girl who he said always made him proud, and who, I hope, is never far from his thoughts.

Here's a video of a song that always reminds me of my parents and my wonderful childhood.