Always

I wrote this five days ago while sitting in a hotel room in Hot Springs.

I wrote it for a post, but being unable to access the Internet and unable to post, I thought I'd end up holding onto it as a moment to myself--as if writing in a journal. Re-reading I've decided otherwise.

L.

Roll Down the Windows and Let The Wind Blow Back Your Hair

Traveling alone is an interesting thing.

If you’re on a plane, you have time to read the preparatory information for the meeting you’re flying to attend.

If you’re in a car, you have time to think about where you’re going, who you’ll see, maybe what you’ll say while you’re there, or you end up singing along to your favorite song over and over again because, as my boss likes to say, “I don’t need preparation. I have my brain”.

No matter the travel situation, there’s always time to think things through.

I’ve been traveling for days—on planes, on trains, and yes, John Candy, in automobiles—with plenty of time to think. I’ve finally arrived in Hot Springs to a hotel room situated directly next to a hospitality suite.

Since I can't sleep, I’ve had even more time to think. And for some reason I’m sitting here thinking about Dad.

He was a delightful man. A man who kept his feelings to himself, but as my aunt once said, “He said little, but when he said something you listened, because it was important.”

I suppose this happens to many children, regardless of age, who lose a parent unexpectedly--I don’t remember the last thing Dad said to me, or the last thing I said to him.

It’s been 11 years. And while I can never be sure of our last words to one another, I’m sure that I wouldn’t remember them now anyway, because he wouldn’t want me to dwell on them.

I must say that there are many days when I’m “down” about Dad. But there are so many more days that I’m happy to have had the time we did.

I watched my father thrive on hot, summer days on the farm looking at me from underneath a combine. As hard as farming life was, he loved it. He loved gazing at us from the top of an irrigation pipe as much as he loved seeing us open gifts on Christmas morning.

He saw us for what we were, what he believed we would become, and what for what we would really end up being. He loved seeing it manifest before his eyes.

He loved seeing us grow from children to teenagers to adults--taking our lives and making them our own. Making mistakes. Doing our best to correct them. And, finally, failing in our eyes, but succeeding in his. He loved it. He loved it, because we were just like him.

Never doing anything exactly right, but never screwing up entirely.

He loved us. Always. Unconditionally.

We may occasionally sit back and think, “Why. Why did you choose to leave us? Why did you choose to go?"

But, those of us who really knew him, those of us who know that while he left us sad for such a long time also know that he was a man who always, always left us smiling.

So when you have a bit too much traveling time and you start to think about the things you normally push so far back in your mind and your heart, never forget that there is always someone in your life, maybe currently, maybe passed and maybe if you’re as lucky as me, one of both, who always leaves you smiling.

Dad nurtured my heart when I needed it. He held it tightly. And, no matter how sad I was, how sad I've been, or how sad I may be in the future, I have love in my life now because I know what love is.

Because I had a father who loved me.

Always.