A few more recollections about my dad...

For the father’s day we knew would be Pop’s last, I was freed from my writer’s block and gifted with a verse to put into his card, which read:

You taught me the difference
Between right and wrong
And how to be kind
And when to be strong

And all the good
That I may do
Is owed to lessons
I learned from you.

Happy Fathers Day, Pop.
I love you.

About his life: Things were always hard for him. He worked hard and felt things deeply and loved his family. He only had one good eye. He was left handed. He did things different. He was different. And he was a very smart man – he invented things. He could fix anything and build anything. He could figure out a way to work around any obstacle that life, or he himself, put in his path – and there were plenty. He could figure out a way to do anything. And it was never, ever, the way the directions said to do it.

His love for Mom was absolute. Mom was the love of his life and he was faithful to her and from him I learned faithfulness. And his love for his children, for his family, was unshakable. I remember a few times as a teenager when I had to call home with those calls you never ever want to make as a teenager, and as a parent I know now you never ever want to hear – and I thank god that I seem to have been spared on this one, knock on wood, and that my children have never had cause to make one of those calls home to me. But his support never wavered. He was always there, he was a rock for me. I have told my children, I could not love them the way I do if Pop had not loved me the way that he did. The way that he does still.

I remember a very big man.