Sharing Chocolate Ice Cream with Daddy

This is the first Father's Day without my dad, the occasion wedged in tight right in the midst of a string of bittersweets ... his birthday, my parents' anniversary, the laying of the gravestone, the date of his death.

I wandered through the dusty old blog archives this morning, looking for another post but finding the one shared below instead, somehow forgotten.  It captures who we were, causing me to smile even as hot tears cascade.

Interesting that along the way I was so busy taking pictures of everybody else that this string of selfies from 2013 are just about the only ones I have of the two of us together.

I honor him this weekend, our whole family remembers.  How could we ever forget?  We each grieve in our own individual ways even as we continue to share memories and stories that somehow seem to get embellished with time.  His legacy shines bright and true.

I'm forever grateful.  For there are no regrets.

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I know that you, too, may be honoring your dad this weekend even though he's not with you anymore.  I hear that the pain lingers long, that an empty space remains always and forever.  May your saddened tears be soothed by gratitude for memories sweet.

And if Father's Day breaks your heart because your relationship wasn't healthy and the memories bring pain, my deepest desire is for you to head over here for words of consolation and comfort.

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June 2013 . . .

Dear Dad ~

Happy 57 years of celebrating Father's Day, happy 61 years with my sainted mother, happy 85th birthday to you.

I hold you close and stretch my arm way out, camera in hand.  We're still making memories whenever we can.  And I want to capture this celebration before we dive into great huge bowls of chocolate ice cream on the most gorgeous Cape Cod day ever.  Before we laugh the sunny afternoon away as we fill the newly painted window boxes with multi-hued petunias and patch the driveway and cut the rhubarb.  Before we sit and watch the birds explore the bird house and someone who shall remain nameless tracks driveway tar onto the light aqua carpeting.  Before the evening falls and the breeze cools and we watch TV at ear-piercing levels and talk politics and books and you share ancient photos and vividly-detailed stories from Scotland in the century past.

We all know you never expected to hit this milestone.  Ah ... but God had other plans, and here you are, moving around on your own two feet and in your right mind.  Wisdom still comes from your heart and your vast life experience.  You still break into hearty song on a moment's notice ... and I realize in the writing of this that my sister and I do the same.  For the nuts didn't fall far from the tree, did they ...

You still prize hard work and an eye to detail, even though you might be moving just a tad slower.  Your eyes are quick to fill at the most sensitive of moments.  You make us laugh ... and yes, we both continue to make each other crazy from time to time.

And when you confidently pound on heaven's doors in perfect King James English, I know our Redeemer listens.  You have shown us how to be faithful to Him and to each other.

Please know I value your wise counsel more than ever.  And I know I'm not the only one.  So please rejoice in this season because your legacy is living on, even as we speak.  Through your children.  Children's children.  And children's children's children.

How good is God!

I love you, Daddy ~

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