LOVE is the Answer. Doesn't matter the Question

THINGS I’D LIKE TO SAY TO MY DAD:

My dad died unexpectedly one year ago today, November 2, 2015.   In his honor, will you do me a favor?  Will you take a minute to pull up a virtual chair, and have a quick cup of virtual coffee with me and give me just a few minutes of your time so I can tell you about him?  It would really help me today.  I’ll warn you, I’ll be choking back tears the whole time, but you just have to sit and listen.  There are several things that I would like to say to him, and that’s what I'm going to share with you today.  Ok? - here we go:   

• Thank you for CHOOSING ME
• Legally, the man I call Dad was “just a foster parent.”  I only lived in his home for six years.  When we left, he could have patted himself on the back for a good deed done and forgotten about us.  But he didn’t - he stayed a part of my life, and he became “home for me.”  As an adult, Dad was always “home.”  Even when my immature young adult self at 19, 20, 21, disappeared for months or even a year at a time before re-connecting, you kept CHOOSING ME.  You never made me feel guilty and you never made me feel awkward.  We always just picked up where we left off.  Your heart and your arms were always open.
• Thank you for LOVING MY KIDS
• Being home to me, meant being Grandpa to my children. And they felt the love.  We never spent enough time with you, but when we did visit, it was like we had never left.  
• Thank you for LOVING MY MOM
• You showed me how a lady should be treated.  You demonstrated very clearly that mom was your biggest priority after God, and never waivered from that for even a second.  You never allowed her to be disrespected in any way.  And you demonstrated a servant's heart towards her.  I can remember how awed I was, especially watching you two interact when i was in my mid to late 20’s, by  the way you doted on her.  And when i saw you six months before your death, having been married close to 60 years, you still waited on her like she was the only thing that mattered to you in the world.
• Thank you for instilling in me my LOVE FOR MUSIC
• Music has been that one constant place of refuge for me.  It was your love for music that instilled that in me.  The fun I remember having as a family when you played the organ and we sang some of the corniest songs, the “How much is that doggy in the window” or “The Animal Fair” stay with me to this day.  My all time favorite birthday present of my life came from you - my autoharp.  Haven’t had a better birthday gift since then.  And I remember it like it was yesterday.
• Thank you for these SPECIAL MEMORIES -  some are light and fun - and some are heavy and sad - but they all speak to the man you were and the life you provided for me:
• Pizza hut was a very special treat.  And it was always cold in the restaurant.  But you let us take two peppermints, always told us on the way in we could only have one, and then acted as if we persuaded you each time to allow us to take two.
• Reubens.  To this day, when I want to feel a little closer to home, I will have a Reuben.  Takes me back to the kitchen on General Maxwell Road and the love and acceptance I felt there.   Maybe more so, than anywhere I have ever been since.
• Stroganoff.  My very favorite meal.  But more importantly, the fact that you remembered that every time I visited as an adult and made sure that we had it.  Even when you were visiting me at my home around 2001-2002 - you made an excuse to run an errand and came back with the stuff for Stroganoff and made dinner.  That memory stands out to me even now, 15 years later when I think of the times that I felt the most loved by you.
• Neccos.  A rare trip to your office in Philadelphia meant that Neccos were in our future.  I think I was an adult before I realized that you could actually buy them at a store and that there weren’t made where you worked.  When I see them in stores, I always think of you and those special trips.
• The time we broke mom’s glass measuring cup, buried it in the backyard and then locked the babysitter in a room.  I remember being so scared for you to come home, and even, as a young kid, feeling so loved, even after experiencing the consequences.
• The day we had to leave. After living with you six years, and despite your efforts to stop it, it was time for us to move to another family. I still remember sitting on the curb out front of our house and you telling me that sometimes life wasn’t fair, but that I had two choices - I could let it destroy me - or I could make the best of a difficult situation and become the person God intended me to be - in spite of the bad things in my life.  My not even 13-year-old self might not have grasped that fully then - but it has stuck with me all these years and been a value that I have strived to live by.
• That moment, after being told by our new family that you didn’t want to talk to us or see us anymore and that you never really loved us, coming across stacks of cards and letters that you had been sending all that time.  I don’t know that I ever told you this, but things had gotten so bad in that home, that I was very near taking my life.  Finding those letters and cards gave me hope again.
• The fact that you always came home on time.  Unless you were traveling, like clockwork every night we would hear the car pull up, the dog get excited, the front door open, you say, “get away from me you dumb-dumb stupid dog”, everyone would get hugs and we would sit and eat dinner as a family.  Thank you for that.  (And we always knew it was just a show - and you loved that dog.  Decades later when you talked about Princess, you had only loving fond things to say about her.)

I have pages upon pages of thing I’ve jotted down over the last year that I would like to tell my dad, ask my dad, or tell others about my dad.  And down the road, I’m sure I’ll do more writing about those things.  But these are what stand out to me today.  

Let me share one more thing that I am thankful for about my dad, and then I’ll wrap this up.  I did a lot of things that I know he didn’t approve of and made a lot of less than perfect decisions. In all that HE NEVER STOPPED LOVING ME.     I attempt to live my life by this creed:  “Love is the answer, doesn’t matter the question.  Love conquers all.”   I have my dad to thank for that because HE TAUGHT ME HOW TO LOVE.

Even now, I still pick up my phone to email dad about something I want to share with him, or ask his advice on, and then as i open GMAIL, realize that he’s probably not on the computer much in heaven.

What I wouldn’t give to have the opportunity to TELL HIM THAT I LOVE HIM.