Missing Dad!

This is a picture taken in 1970.  I am the taller girl  ( I think I was taller than my brother that year too! ) We were camping and Dad had taken us all fishing to Skinners Falls.   I remember that day......

Today would have been my Dad's 80th birthday.  I'm looking out the window and it is snowing.  Dad loved a good snowstorm. We all chuckled when  on the day of his funeral there was a big snowstorm. It was fitting then and it is fitting now.  I miss my Dad.. he was a wonderful man.  He taught me much about life and the world around me. He instilled in me a love for nautre that is much a part of who I am.  He cam from a large family and his brothers and sisters were always his biggest allies.  I remember one time near the end of his life, when he was battling both Parkinsons and Alzheimers.  I went to visit him in the hospital.  I was pretty sure he knew it ws me, we had always been close.  But then my aunt, his sister, came into the room.  She bent down and said "Hi, David" very close to his ear.  The smile that grew on his face told me he certainly knew who had come to visit him.  It was then that I truly realized the forever bond that can exist between siblings. Although my 3 boys did get to meet Dad we really didn't have enough time with him.  They really only remember going to the Nursing Home and taking Dad out for trips.  My Dad was only in his late 50s when both diseases began ravaging his body and sadly, his mind.  He handled it with grace although many times he would act in a way that was so not like him.  But we always knew... it was the disease.

He would have been so supportive of our journey to add Sierra to our family.  I feel bad that she will only know him from his pictures.  But she will have a part of him with her.  It will be the legacy that her brothers pass down to her...the legacy that I passed down to them...which I received from a caring, gentle, wonderful man.  Happy Birthday Dad!!!!!