I am starting tonight’s blog a bit later than usual–it’s 11:11 here in the East. It has been a good day, another one spent with family enjoying one another’s company as well as accomplishing some tasks at home. I am content and grateful for many simple blessings.
I will end this day in part as I began it; remembering my father who would have been celebrating his 90th birthday today. And celebrate it he probably would. I imagine we’d have had a bash for him: 90 is nothing to sneeze at after all. His father, my grandfather, lived to be 100 and he definitely had a bash to celebrate that particular accomplishment. I’ve no doubt Dad would have enjoyed a party. He liked being celebrated and didn’t shy away from the spotlight; he was well known and deeply appreciated by many, many people. It’s quite odd to be without him.
Although his departure from this life two years ago wasn’t as devastating to me as my mother’s passing 17 years ago, I find that I miss him at odd times. And while I couldn’t bear to look at pictures of my mother after she died (I finally have some framed photos of her on my bookshelf for the first time since she died), it is the picture of my father looking into the camera and saluting that I’ve kept on the bookshelf in my bedroom where I can see it. During the tough times I faced throughout 2011 and much of 2012, that photo reminded me to “soldier on” through the challenges, which I did. In that sense, he’s still very much with me as I go through my days. And thanks to the photo, I think of him every day.
I am grateful for who he was and for who I am, those parts that I get from him, those ways in which I am like him. It almost always makes me smile when I recognize mannerisms, a particular way I might move, or how I hold my hands a certain way or other simple things that are similar to the ways in which he moved. My father was a singer–he had a very nice singing voice–and he sang a lot around the house. I think of him periodically when I’m singing: not when I’m playing my guitar, but when I’m walking around the house doing a chore (this morning it was while I was raking leaves) or in the car driving to the store, or in the everyday activities of life. And I am like him in some other important ways–like the commitment to service, civil rights and equality, toward working on behalf of others, for the good of our fellow beings. While both my parents served the community each in their own unique ways, my father’s more public service set an example for me and my siblings.
My father was far from perfect, and even in that he set an example, as I too am far from perfect. But perfection is not required of us, making an effort, trying, is. And trying to be the best human being one possibly can. In that, my father accomplished a great deal, and I can only hope to do the same. So I honor and salute him on what would have been his 90th birthday and express deep gratitude from all that I have learned and continue to learn from him. Thanks, and happy birthday Daddy.
