Today would have been Dad's 80th birthday. 80...It doesn't fit neatly in my head. He would have been twice my age. Officially 'old'.
I'm thinking about him a lot today- how he would laugh at the stupidest jokes, watch the worst movies, and really enjoyed some of the dumbest television on television. I guess I can blame him for my taste in viewing pleasure. I can almost hear him now, laughing at Tim and Al on Home Improvement. He loved that show so much, we got him the first season on dvd so he could watch it anytime there was 'nothing good' on TV. He watched it often
I was looking through my scrapbook and found some of the things people had said about him at his funeral. I can't help but wonder if they were talking about the same person. People told me how nice he was, how friendly he was, how stiff and formal he was. It stands to reason that most of these people didn't know him very well- his best friends were gone, he didn't talk to his neighbors much, and very few people really had conversations with him.
It was fairly common knowledge that he drank coffee. That's pretty much it- just coffee. Few people know how much he liked blueberry/cranberry juice. There was so much more to him than anyone could possibly know. I'm sorry I didn't take the time to get to know him when we were both younger. I am so very grateful that I got the chance to finally meet him before he died. I learned that he wasn't nice- he was polite (almost to a fault!). He wasn't quiet if there was something he needed to say, or if there was something someone else needed to hear. He wasn't friendly- he viewed people as noisy, inconsiderate, and smelly. I also get this from him.
He never understood why people thought he was stiff and formal. I tried telling him it was because most people only saw him in his "Sunday go to meetin'" clothes, not at home in his tee shirt and slippers, doing his crossword puzzles and messing up his hair. The running joke was that I was going to bury him in his slippers with messy hair and a coffee cup. I am sorry I didn't get to do that- he would have seen the humor.
He had an incredible sense of humor. He could find the funny in almost any situation, and he was generous with his findings. Occasionally he would start laughing at a joke he heard quite a while ago. When I asked if he thought his memory was going, his response: How could my memory be going, if I can remember and repeat a joke from 50 years ago?! Lighten up!
That was pretty much his advice in any situation- lighten up. Whatever horrible thing had happened couldn't have been all bad if you walked away from it and could still tell about it. If all else failed, there was always ice cream.
He loved to go for rides in the car to look at all the pretty colors- first flowers in the spring, the green grass and summer blossoms, the leaves changing in the fall, and even the pure white of winter's first snow. (The thrill of that last one only lasted until someone walked on it, or it snowed again, He didn't care much for winter.) No matter what season we were in, he could find something colorful and beautiful in the world outside. He said he finally got the chance to see what he had been missing all those years when he was the driver, and he wanted to see it all. Watching him look out the window was very much like watching a child who is finally big enough to see- his head would swivel to follow a squirrel into the woods, he would point out flowers that had just started to bloom, he would watch a bird soaring with pure awe. At the end of every journey, he would thank god for getting him to his destination safely, and for giving him so much to see along the way.
I guess I should thank god for getting him safely to his destination, and for giving him so much to see along the way.
