Miss Ya Dad

A year ago we were celebrating my dad's 81st birthday. We had just spent a super fun month with him and had made plans for him to come and spend 3 weeks with us in Sweden the following July. Three and a half weeks after his birthday, he was gone. 
It's still hard for me to embrace the reality that his life on earth ended so abruptly.

Of course, I am so thankful that he is not languishing in some horrible place, not really living but not yet dead. But the finality that death brings to our earthly relationships is just so hard to take sometimes. He would be LOVING watching our house transformation. Both Doug and I have laughed so many times about how excited he would be. He'd be up here every day watching things unfold. And we'd be gearing up to fill out brackets for March Madness and getting excited about baseball starting, and clearing our schedules to watch the Masters golf tournament together and eating delicious ribeye steaks at least once a week. We'd be engaged in the ultimate Cribbage tournament, the winner taking all of the bragging rights! All of these are things that I would love to be doing with him now that we are back in the US. But it's just the memories of doing these things together that remains.

We loved having him with us in Sweden and he loved the boat and hanging out with Tanner.

We were going to spread his ashes today but I'm just not ready to hold his remains in my hands and return them to the earth. Maybe by the anniversary of his death, April 4, I'll be ready to do this. For today, I'm content to be thankful for the 81 years of life he had and savor the memories of the shared life we enjoyed.
I'm so much like my father. I'm competitive, enjoy humor, love sports, feel passionate about stuff, love winning, am adventurous, love the underdog, and feel deeply about everything I love...and I got a lot of those from watching him be the same. I still miss him every single day. Peace to your memory pops. You were the best and all who knew you miss you too.