Dear Dad,
Today is your 77th birthday. While I know you're outside of time now, I'm still in it and so I am wishing you a very happy birthday. I thought about you at midnight. I remember you telling me how your mom would always call at 12:01 AM so that she would be the first one to wish you a happy birthday. I know how it would irritate you. But you'd laugh at the memory.
I wish you were here. I know you'd be in your room. You would have just finished eating the creamed crab on toast you wanted me to make for your birthday this year. I also know you'd come out to the kitchen in an hour or so and ask me when I was going to start your birthday dinner of ciappiano. And then you'd let me know that you want to have a hand in making it, meaning you wanted to come out and boss me around. I loved being bossed around by you, even though we'd butt heads sometimes. When you'd bow out of the head butting session, I'd feel so bad, I'd let you win anyway. But you knew it. I could never best you in mental games. Ever. You'd let me think I did, but we both knew better. I could always see the amusement in your eyes when I'd get irritated. Mostly irritated that I fell once again, sucker to your verbal prods and pokes. But, you left me a smarter, more tolerant person.
Thank you for teaching me how to preserve my own ideas and beliefs
while listening to someone air theirs. You taught me how make a
difference in someones day by just listening to them. I know that
listening and smiling and finding positive things in what someone is
sharing with me, even though I disagree, makes them happy and feel
valued and how that is more important than sharing my opinions on what I
think of their ideas.
You always listened to me. You always made me feel so valuable to you, to the world around me. You always told me I was beautiful when I seldom felt beautiful. You told me I was a great mom, after I cried over my kids, feeling like a failure. You told me many times, what a great daughter I was when I was so overwhelmed with the duties I had before me. But I learned. I learned to tell you the same thing. I started saying "I'm a great daughter because I have a great dad" and "You're an amazing dad to put up with a daughter like me". And then YOU had nothing to say! That was so fun!!! Thank you for teaching me so much.
I miss you, dad. But I feel strangely calm and peaceful today. Maybe you've asked God to give me a gift on your birthday. It would be like you. You're so selfless. Anyway, I've been blessed today on your birthday to be held in a beautiful pocket of peace and tranquility.
Happy birthday to the most amazing man I've ever met in my life.
I love you dad.
You are forever young.
Love, your daughter, Lonna
You always listened to me. You always made me feel so valuable to you, to the world around me. You always told me I was beautiful when I seldom felt beautiful. You told me I was a great mom, after I cried over my kids, feeling like a failure. You told me many times, what a great daughter I was when I was so overwhelmed with the duties I had before me. But I learned. I learned to tell you the same thing. I started saying "I'm a great daughter because I have a great dad" and "You're an amazing dad to put up with a daughter like me". And then YOU had nothing to say! That was so fun!!! Thank you for teaching me so much.
I miss you, dad. But I feel strangely calm and peaceful today. Maybe you've asked God to give me a gift on your birthday. It would be like you. You're so selfless. Anyway, I've been blessed today on your birthday to be held in a beautiful pocket of peace and tranquility.
Happy birthday to the most amazing man I've ever met in my life.
I love you dad.
You are forever young.
Love, your daughter, Lonna
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