BS: Today my dad would have been 66

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: banjoman
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 06:32 AM

Thanks for sharing your letter - it made me think of my Dad who died in 1951. Hardly a day goes by without some thought of him and I know he is still very much with us in our memories.. There is a wonderful passage which I have heard read at funerals - I have not gone - Its as if I have only slipped into the next room- talk to me as you always did- I am always near you.

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: Becca72
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 10:14 AM

Brought a tear to my eye, Tami. Being a Daddy's Girl myself, I can relate. I'm happy to share my dad with you (though I know it isn't the same).

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 10:57 PM

Hold on to those wonderful memories.

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: Janie
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 09:58 PM

Love to you, Tammy. Thanks for sharing that letter.

Your letter and the comments it has invited helps me appreciate how truly fortunate I am to have not lost my Dad until he was old and becoming frail, even before the cancer.

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 09:35 PM

Keep remembering the relationship you had, and keep writing about it. Keep trying to see yourself through his eyes.

Hugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: kendall
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 09:18 PM

I'm sorry for your loss little buddy. 66 is too young these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: open mike
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 09:17 PM

comfort to you....

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 12:47 PM

Ranger1

You have offered me comfort at times I was grieving.

How fortunate to have had a good relationship with your Dad. I can't offer any real comfort but this. Go out on a starry night. Look up. Maybe those aren't merely stars. Maybe they are our lost loved ones, smiling down on us, letting us know they see us and are still with us.

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 09:48 AM

He seemed a great guy. I imagine he was as proud as could be of you. If he could say one thing to you, it would be to live your life now, be strong and become the person to your friends and family that he was to all of you. Memories are forever my friends, no one can ever take those away.

Bless your dad.

Keith.

Please watch this, it helped me at the time and it is a hell of a song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGDA0Hecw1k

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 09:36 AM

Even now, 61 years later, I'd love to talk with my Dad. Even now, thirty years later, I'd like to call my Mother. And I've picked up the phone to call my brother, who left on March 5 of this year. And both sets of Grandparents, and various uncles and aunts.... So I keep them around anyway, even if I can't talk to them directly.

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 06:48 PM

Great letter, and I know how you feel.

My Dad was a machinist, a guy who was good with his hands, and could figure out most any issue by taking a practical approach. I wasn't like that, and for years I would call Dad before undertaking any project, and every time I hit a stumbling block I would call again. After he died, I still said to myself "I've got to call Dad about this" before the realization would hit me.
Eventually, I asked myself "What would he have said about that?", and to my surprise the answer was usually there. I guess I found the part of me that is my Dad, and I still turn things over to that part when I'm baffled by something. In that way, he's still here with me.
He was no saint, and I see the negative attributes in me as well, and I am working on fixing those as well.
Yes, the painful part will eventually fade for you as it has for me, I think. In one way or another, your dad, and mine, goes on, and there's peace in that.

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: gnu
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 05:39 PM

Charley... "As long as you still think of him, he's around."

Indeed.

Take solace in that, r1.

And, thanks for sharing.

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 05:34 PM

Loving thoughts.

I'm sure they'll find their way to your father.

As long as you still think of him, he's around.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 01:04 AM

ranger1, I am sure he is bursting with pride in you and knows of what you are feeling and writing. It's heartfelt, which is where he will always be, in your heart, and, unfortunately, one of the hard things we all have to live through. It can be damned hard, though, and I, too, after many years, find myself wanting to phone my mom or dad to share, ask, just talk.

My dad passed away on Nov. 29, 2004 and it still seems like yesterday. Likewise with my mom, who has been away since Jan. 1999.

Much love and hugs to you, darlin'...he raised a good'un!

luyakat

Subject: RE: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: open mike
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 12:47 AM

thanks for sharing....treasure your memories...this makes me miss my dad, too.

Subject: BS: Today my dad would have been 66
From: ranger1
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 11:24 PM

My dad's been gone for almost four years now. I still feel like I should be picking up the phone and calling him to wish him happy birthday. Can't do that anymore, so I wrote him a letter instead. Because so many of my Mudcat friends were there for me when he died, I wanted to share that letter with you as a way of keeping his memory alive.

Dear Dad,

Today would have been your 66th birthday. I have a harder time dealing with your loss on the anniversary of your birth than I do on the anniversary of your death for some reason. People keep telling me it gets better. People are full of shit. Maybe it gets easier in time, but I don't think it ever gets better. Ritch and I were talking a couple of weeks ago (we've both been dealing with some weighty issues lately) and we agreed that the hardest thing is not being able to pick up the phone and pour our troubles out to you. You always had something to say to us, sometimes it was good advice, sometimes it was something that just made us laugh and feel better for having laughed about it.

Sundays are the days I miss you most. Our 6 AM phone conversations before I'd go to work when I was at home, or coffee and breakfast out when I was down visiting. The banter back and forth about the amount of milk and sugar that Ritch and I put in our coffee, bad puns, and jokes about what to do with a frozen 20 lb. turkey that you'd been given the night before Thanksgiving. No one gets the "but was it frozen" line now that you're gone. It's no fun having an in joke when I'm the only one who gets it. I still find myself picking up the phone to tell you something every once in a while.

I miss being able to pick your brain about problems at work. I wish I'd asked you how to pour a slab, how to fix dozens of things and the best way to sharpen a lawn mower blade. I find myself quoting some of the things you'd say, usually about 4-wheel drive SUVs and the people who drive them and your line about how any idiot can mount a plow on the front of their truck but not everyone knows how to use one. I wish I could tell you about all the things I learned from you and been able to put into practice. I frequently tell people "My dad taught me how to plow" with pride in my voice. I also know way more about bridge construction than anyone not in the trade should know. I remember you telling me to find out where the locals gather and to get my coffee there, to learn all the backroads in a new area because you never know when you're going to need to know where they go and I've put that advice to good use.

I miss your smell - Lucky Strikes, gasoline, and honest working-man's sweat. I miss the bear hugs out in the dooryard and you telling me to drive safe when I'd leave. I miss the love and pride that shone from your eyes when you'd talk about us to others. I miss riding backroads with Johnny Cash on the tape deck and listening to you tell me about our family history, even if I'd heard it a hundred times before. I miss stopping and watching deer in the fields at dusk and sharing the beauty in silence.

I feel your loss as a great ache, but I know that I wouldn't trade it for anything. It only hurts because I know what I've lost.

Happy birthday, Dad. I miss you.