My Dad

Sorry it's taken me so long to get this posted!

April 9 was a day to celebrate. It was Ethan's 4th birthday and the 10th anniversary of when Dad went home. He died from an aggressive form of cancer 10 years ago. It was almost exactly 2 years from when he'd been diagnosed. Even though April 9 was a good day, Dad was in my mind most of the day. No dad or parent is perfect. We all have our little quirks and imperfections, and we're all sinners. But I can honestly say that my dad was a very good Christian dad. Even after 10 years, the pain of losing him has eased somewhat, but I still feel his absence acutely, especially when I look at my children. I wish so much he could have known them.
My earliest memories of my dad are his knees and shoes, and I remember tapping his knee or pulling on his pant leg so he would pick me up. I also remember the smell of the dust on his clothes when he came home from the cement plant where he worked. The thing that I remember most of all, the whole time I was growing up, is that he always took time to listen to us. He was always telling us, "Talk to me." Of course, being a chatty person, I was usually in the mood to talk! He could be a little preachy at times, but he was a very astute observer of people, and was usually (and sometimes frustratingly) right most of the time. I have to say that is the thing I miss the most - just conversing with him. He was a pack-rat. The little room off our carport was full of tools, books, old papers, and dusty scales. He said he knew it was messy, but he knew where everything was (he did). He was fun-loving, that's for sure. A summer never went by where we didn't take some kind of vacation. We had a pop-up tent trailer that we took camping most summers. I also remember going to the World's Fair in Knoxville and going on a Texas vacation. When I was in junior high, Dad changed jobs and was a technical service/sales rep and traveled a lot. We went with him during the summers. We went to Disney World and Biloxi, MS during this time. He was always a neat dresser. He took special care to make sure his suits fit correctly and his shoes were polished. The exception to that would be when he wore his shorts with black socks and tennis shoes. I told him that was a fashion no-no, and he told me his white socks were too thick for these particular shoes and would make them too small! When I went to college in Searcy at Harding, he would come through town and stay sometimes. He would take me out to dinner and we'd make a trip to Wal-Mart. That was when I first remember email. I had an account, and we would email back and forth. I wish I had printed off and saved those. At my wedding, people asked him how he held it together when he walked me down the aisle and gave me away. He said, "Well, one of us had to hold it together, and Laura was shaking like a leaf!" There is so much more I could write about all the things he did-handle Bible Hour with Mom on Sunday nights (for YEARS), taught Bible class occasionally, cared for his parents and aunt, worked and saved so that my sister and I could both attend Harding, loved my mother, etc. I will end with this, though. The thing I hope the most is that when people go to my funeral someday, they will describe me the way they described him-a person of integrity, who loved the Lord and his family.