Happy Father's Day earlyFollow

Nexa blog, it's been a while. I've barely slept, so deal with it missy.

Well, the 24th of June will mark one year since the unexpected passing of my father in his sleep at the age of 56. I'm fairly certain the fullness of that has yet to sink in for me, since I seem to forget periodically that he is dead. Each time that I remember it is somewhat less of a shock so I guess Freud would label that as some variety of progress.

My father was a troublemaker of the movie variety. He made the girls swoon, skipped class, and crashed his first car, a thunderbird, into a tree at high speeds. He was driving around the country ******** off when he heard about Woodstock on the radio and he and his friend made it there for the last two days. He was a math whiz, loved to play chess, and was a voracious reader. We frequently read books at the same time when I was younger so that we could discuss them. As a young man, he looked like one of the Beetles.

My father was 27 when I was born and had already resigned himself to being childless due to the purported infertility of my mother. Her pregnancies (2 even!) were nothing short of miraculous for him and my sister and I represented everything he ever wanted. My father wasn't someone who cared about being what would traditionally be considered successful. He wanted just enough to get by and not worry. He wanted two daughters and a wife who loved him. He didn't care about being wealthy or prestigious, only respected and appreciated and he was by everyone who knew him. He was the kind of person that younger men came to for advice on a wide variety of issues because he was honest, clear headed, and kind but firm.

He loved my sister and I with the kind of adoration that no one might have expected of a man that grew to look similar to a giant ogre. He stood 6'2", was at least 300 pounds, had crazy hair that stuck up at angles, about 8 crooked teeth, and he was mostly deaf...so he yelled all the time. He laughed like an escaped convict from a mental asylum. He also loved shopping for baby clothes for my daughter and was the one who went out on his own and got her her first set of crib sheets, bumpers, and quilt...teddy bears reading books. The last time I saw him was for her 2nd birthday party where he proudly produced clothing that was at least 2 sizes too large for her. She put on the jacket he gave her that day just last week. She likes to tell everyone about her new jacket...with the butterflies! She also likes to tell me that my daddy is on the phone when she's playing with the toy phone in her play kitchen. I only speak with him briefly.

My father was also...hmmm...let's go with eccentric. Of note:
- He spent a great deal of time teaching me to run straight up walls and trees and do backflips as a child. He loved movies about ninjas.
- We used to stop on bridges as high as 15 feet above the water and jump off on hot days.
- He liked mayonnaise sandwiches. Yes, just a half inch of mayo between two slices of bread.
- My father taught me that it was ok to beat up boys if they deserved it, and I once watched him swipe a knife out of a guys hand and then chase him down the street with it.
- On Christmas Eve, every year, CB and Ham radio users from places all over the country and internationally gathered their children around to listen to my father recite "The Night Before Christmas"
- When I was a baby, he used to take me out for walks in the mornings after getting home from working nights. He would be in his factory clothes, dirty and sweaty from working all night, red eyed and exhausted. He would have dressed me like a princess, hair done up and dress pristine. He frequently suspected others thought he had kidnapped me.
- When I was very small, my father worked until about 3am at a factory. He would frequently forget his keys and knock on my window when he got home to let him in. We would then spend the wee hours of the morning watching Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers before I was sent back to bed after promising not to tell my mother. My mother didn't understand his insistence at getting me a Buck Rogers space station playset for Christmas when I was four and I've never explained it. I wish I still had it but I played with it until it fell to pieces.
- He went through a period when I was very young where he was terrified that he was going to die before I reached adulthood. His sister was murdered when I was 2 and left behind a young son. He was afraid that he would die and I would not remember him. So, he began recording himself reading books to me. Anytime I read the Dragon Riders of Pern, I still hear it in his voice.
- My father was a terrible slob, especially when it came to his car. He smoked with all the windows rolled up and barely aimed for the ashtray when he flicked his cigarette. As such, he insisted that my mother take all photos of me that I gave him to her school to laminate them before he taped them to the dashboard.


My mother and father met when they were working at a nursing home that they eventually worked together to shut down because it was abusing patients. My mother was dating someone else at the time. He was friends with my father and hurting my mother so my father broke them up.

When my father died, it was a shock, certainly, and things were a little surreal for a week. I went to the burial (we didn't have a funeral, he didn't want one, and everyone was under strict instructions from my mother to not dress up). It was the first time that Smash met my family, unfortunately minus one. After that week, I came home, and went back to work, and went back to the regular way of things with something just not right. Rarely has that feeling left me but life has gone on just the same.

It hasn't for my mother. Her world stopped spinning that morning and since then it's been stalled as she finds different things to orbit around in the mean time...my daughter's birthday, my sister's wedding. My sister will be married this weekend and then off on her honeymoon on Sunday. On Tuesday, my father would have turned 57. In a few weeks, it will be Father's Day. I have other things to focus on but I am unsure of how she will face these first year milestones alone with traditions left by the wayside. A reminder popped up from my online calendar yesterday to remind me to put a card in the mail for his birthday. I know there will be another one in a few weeks to remind me of Father's Day...but I can't bring myself to go in and turn it off. The cookies I got him for Father's day last year are still in my freezer...I was going to visit a couple weeks after Father's day, and I did, but obviously for different reasons.

This Father's day I will be spending with Smash's family, so his dad can likely expect an extra couple of gifts. My ex husband will be spending that weekend with our daughter, and I'll be happy for them both. Something's missing....oh yeah.

He sounds like a wonderful man.

Absolutely.

If my future kids feel this way about me when I die, then I'll be one hell of a happy dead dad.

Very eloquent Nexa.

You totally should!

I feel so bad now that I yelled at my parents last week.

A Beautiful tribute to the love of your father, Nexa.

My father been very ill since last Christmas, and so I worry that this may be my last father's day with him. While he says that he wished he had spent more time with us as children, I have so many memories of spending time watching him work around the house. Later he thought nothing of the fact that I took after him. My favorite memories are of when as a teen, he would let me help him set up his noise meter and help take check the noise levels around our house.

When he brought home a micro- computer for work, He gave me the manual to read, knowing that I couldn't wait to be able to play with it. It was just a scientific calculator on steroids, with a small portable plotter, yet it open up a world of possibilities in a time, before Apples and PC's.

Years later I became the person, he would give permission to shut down his system after all the program was done with all the data on a 8" tape drive, while he and my mom went out for the night. I was the one he called when he was stump with how to repair his computer.

Back when I had return to Baltimore, my mom asked me to go through some art work she had saved. among the art work done by my siblings and I was several figure studies he had done in college, so I found out we share another talent in common, as my major was going to be in Fine Arts in Drawing, if I had stay in at my first college.


Since my mother passed away in 2001, Mother's day haven't been easy. Yet somehow, my daughter's have made sure that I know I've done a good job, so the day brings mixed feelings for me.

I can't think Father's day will ever be easy emotionally for me. Closest I can come to, is making sure my son-in-law knows how he's been a great father to my grandchildren. My ex doesn't let the girls give "Her" anything for Father's Day and only in the last year have they begun to think of Jonwin as their Step Father, though we may never walk down an aisle. When my next daughter gets married, she has asked Jonwin to walk her down the aisle, instead of my ex.

Eloquent, uplifting and heartwarming.

It sounds like you had an amazing father. And it also sounds like you are one of the few who knew it. A lot of people out there (myself included) never had a decent father. While it may seem like it's never enough time, you were given a precious gift that so many others never receive, in such a wonderful man being your father. Happy Fathers Day, Nexas Dad! To a man who truly deserves it.

What wonderful memories you have. I have to agree with DSD in that not all of us have such a clear,consistent and positive picture of what our father meant to us. When it finally does hit you, don't be scared to let yourself feel, because not only can you thankfully fall back on all that he taught you, but you can carry on in his image for your daughter's sake.

I can be honest and selfish enough to say that I teared up too, but with envy.

You've got a kid Debalic? When did that happen?

Oh **** off Mr. Mom.