Today would have been my dad’s birthday.
I can’t remember a birthday spent with him. Most likely when I was very small we might have made him a cake.
He left our family when I was five.
Then I met him again when I was in my thirties.
If I allow myself to remember all that I had missed it gets a bit sad and crazymaking.
He was a cowboy type of guy. Wearing cowboy boots with his western shirts and cowboy hat.
He sheared sheep and became very well known in the business. It’s not easy to wrestle a heavy sheep while shearing the wool off of them.
He did it and made a name for himself. He also was an auctioneer. One of the best.
He also welded iron gates in his older years.
He always had a dog till he couldn’t have one anymore.
After many years of being divorced and away from each other, he remarried my mom.
So when they both passed away they were married to each other, just as it was in the beginning.
It was a love that never really went away; although years distanced them, the heart was still fond.
I got to know him on some level in my adult years and we came to an understanding.
He was my dad and I was his daughter and very much like him in many ways.
In fact when he first came back into our lives my husband was amazed how much we were alike.
Years didn’t matter. I missed a lot by not having him around as I grew up.
It would have been nice to have a choice to be with someone else when our mother was having her moments.
I do not relate to a close ‘knit’ relationship that some girls have had with their dads.
Dad kept his space and his distance. Sometimes he would hug me and show he cared; but it was guarded most of the time.
Today would have been my dad’s birthday.
A day I remember for many reasons. Mostly because I miss him.