60! I remember your 32'nd birthday, I was a little kid, but I vividly remember thinking "this was how old Jesus was when he died". I was nervous, because you were rather Jesus like to me. I remember wheezing out a big sigh of relief when you made it to 33, thinking that you had outlived the big guy (I was a weird kid). I remember 40, I remember 50, and I embrace what 60 is to you.
You wear it well, Pop's.
When I sat down to think about a story, many things came to mind. I remember you not going to church, and me going to camp crying about your doomed soul. I remember you teaching me to ski. I remember you playing indoor tennis with me on halloween. I remember you teaching me how to throw a baseball, and your acceptance of my reluctance to throw a softball. I remember your stories of childhood as though they were my own, and how I treasured them. I remember thinking that you were awesome at basketball, because of your behind the back under the knee "slam dunk" move. I remember you teaching me about boys, and their nefarious intentions. I remember you telling me a story about how you used to climb in bed with me at night when you were working long hours ~ long after I had fallen asleep, just so that you could wrap your arms around me and smell me, your daughter.
I remember Mom's water breaking, and Peter being born. I remember you introducing me to my brother.
I remember Mom being pregnant with Becca, and reading books to my little sister when she was just a bulge in Mom's belly. I remember the day you and Mom brought her home in a snowstorm, and you lied to me that the hospital hadn't released her.....then brought me up to your bedroom where my sweet sister lay sleeping.
I remember you loving me. I remember you being so cool, so relatable, when times were tough.
The one thing that will always and forever remind me of you was just after Luke's birth. I was about 30 weeks pregnant when we got your scary prognosis. When we, your kids, had to contemplate your death. I was so ripe with life, carrying your first grandchild, and I had to contemplate your death. It was horrible. I stayed up all night long, many nights, googling pancreatic cancer, while new life wiggled within me. I climbed into bed, pregnant and sad, gasping for air at the thought of you not knowing the legacy that you and Mom had enabled. The thought of you meeting your first Grandchild as a man bidding farewell to life was too much for me to bear. I wept.
And then things changed. Suddenly, beyond all belief, you were not dying. Suddenly, you had a new chapter to write in the story of our family.
So when I think about you, my Dad ~ the guy who made me, who loved me, who taught me what it was to love a woman as I witnessed your marriage, I think about this.
I remember being in the hospital. Bryn Mawr hospital, the same place that you were born. The same place that Mom Mom laid in bed admiring all of your perfection. I think about you coming into my room the day after my sweet Luke was born. And I remember how snowy and cold and frozen and icy it was. And you were thin. You were a little bit haggard, and still recovering. You had very recently been through some hard times.
You got to my room and demanded to hold Luke, in your Dad~ish way. You sat there, drawn, weary, with my newly born life in your arms. And you giggled. I had never, in my entire life, seen you giggle. You told me how you could not wait to get to the hospital that morning. You told me how you parked your car in the parking lot, and you started to run. You started to run towards us. You caught yourself in disbelief ~ and looked around to see if anyone had noticed you sprinting towards the hospital. You could not believe your desire to see that little baby boy, that symbol of life going on. Your grandchild. You, in your beaten down state, were running across a frozen parking lot to see us, your daughter, and your first Grandson.
That, to me, is you, Dad. You possess the spirit of a boy. You run towards the things that bring you joy. I have long said that you live in hyperbole, you have had "The Best!" dinner at "The Best!" restaurant 300 times.......and you have meant what you said every single time. I love your enthusiasm, Dad.
Thank you for all of the joy that you have brought me in the past 35 years. Thank you for loving me through colic. Thank you for loving me through the pain that the teenage years brought. Thank you for loving me when I hurt, and when I triumphed. Thank you for loving my husband, and my children, and me. Thank you for teaching me, through example, how a man should love his wife. Thank you for taking care of yourself, and of Mom, and of us.
60 ain't nothing for you but more justification for playing from the senior's tees.
You have led by example. I love you. You will, no matter how old, always be my Daddy.
Happy, happy birthday.
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