Tomorrow would be my dad's 47th birthday. I often wonder what he'd look like right now, would his thick dark hair be all graying, would he even have hair left? Would he still be working on old cars, something he so much looked forward to when he came home from work everyday. Would he still love doing carpentry work? Would he be enjoying his retirement? Would he be drilling me with his father-daughter talks? I'll never know the answer to these questions. My dad is dead. In my eyes he will always be young with is quick smile. It's difficult to believe he would have turned 47 tomorrow.

On Thanksgiving I started to get a bit low about it. It's frightening. I hate being low. I'm NEVER low about anything. Even my dad. However, today it was such a beautiful, sunny day, I have resolved not to be morose about him not being here and to celebrate the fact that he was in my life at all. So I went out and bought him some flowers.

Which is also rare.

Today was the first day since his funeral I've been to his grave. Every Christmas, birthday, Memorial Day, my family tries to drag me to where remains rest just down the road, in a cold, cold, plot of earth. I've never seen the need to visit grave yards. Never. I've always found it difficult to understand why anyone would decorate a stone for a person that is long gone. I can't understand why people visit on every occasion. I discovered today that is doesn't help. And it doesn't help your loved one because -well- they ARE dead. There's nothing for me there. Seeing the stone for a second time reminded me of the funeral. When I think of the funeral... well... I cringe!!! I don't want to remember what my dad's dead body looked like. I don't want to remember that wreck!! And I don't want to think of him six feet below and so... cold. My dad was never cold, but warm. He had a warm heart, a warm voice, a warm hug. (And a hot temper. hahaha)

To me, the memorial isn't on a piece of carved granite, but in the heart. It's in the REMEMBERANCE of the person.

I long to remember him as clearly as I did before. I've realized that I hardly remember the sound of his voice...

I want to think of the times he would sling me over his shoulders and pretend I was a potato sack. The times he would pretend to hate having pets in the house. (but we'd always catch him asleep on the couch with the Great Dane) I want to remember the times I'd sit in awe on the front porch while he and my unlce played a heated game of one-on-one basketball. I want to remember him sneaking me M&M's before supper, sharing a bowl of ice cream with him. I want to remember his laugh. He had an addicting laugh. He'd tease me, playfully torment me into a fit of rage. And then he'd laugh at my red cheeks and fierce glare. No matter how angry with him I'd become I'd forget as soon as he laughed. When he laughed it was such a joyous moment. You just couldn't possibly be upset.

He had a charm about him.

Remembering might bring a few sober sighs from me, but I'll never have to shallow the horrid desire to cry. Nope. I'll be glowing inside, for it was truly a privilege to have such a wonderful man in my life.

In his book The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran wrote the following of death:
“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what it is to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then shall you begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”