Today, February 6th, should be a significant day for me but since I don’t celebrate death it’s one day I would like to forget.
You never can prepare yourself for the death of a loved one. The pain is still the same whether they die suddenly or suffer for months with an illness. It’s been 17 years and I can still hear him whistling, as he did so much, when working around the house. I still expect to cook him his favorite dinner on his birthday. I still see him so fresh in my mind that sometimes it doesn’t even feel like he’s gone. I miss him just as much today as I did the day he died. He was an inspiration to his family and to people around him.
I was very close with my father, growing up. You could say that I was the son he never had. I was the one that followed him around with a tool belt, getting my hands dirty and digging in the dirt. I was the one that ran out to the front of the house to greet him when I heard his truck coming down the street. I watched TV with him, I played cards with him and I sat next to him in the gun room while he prepared for his next hunting trip.
We shared clams on a half shell. We shared pickled pigs feet. We shared the same love for the mountain air. Where ever he was, I was. I’m the one who reflects his most amazing qualities. I’m the one that follows in his footsteps.
He was my father, a hero in my eyes. I looked up to him and could always count on him when I needed him most.
Some people would say he looked like Paul Newman, either way he was always a star in my eyes.
