Remembering Dad

My dad died much too young, which doesn't make me special. I know lots of folks who've lost a parent way too young, or even a spouse way too early.

It's been just over seven years since my Dad died. It was July 2003, and our oldest son, Luke, was just one. We still lived in the city, and I had just left my full time job to stay home with him.

It had been so hard for me to tell him I was quitting, or as I put it then, "taking a sabbatical." He had always been the parent who encouraged my career goals. When I quit a corporate job to return to my first love, newspaper reporting, even though it meant a serious change to my income and lifestyle, he was the parent who told me I was right to pursue my dream. When my dreams changed and I decided to return to corporate work and to pursue my MBA, it was Dad who gave me a copy of economist Diane Swonk's autobiography and told me, "You will enjoy this."

So of course when I told him I was leaving my job to mother Luke full time, he was genuinely thrilled and told me I'd accomplish great things in life, that I didn't need a six-figure income to do that.

It took me a long time to figure out it didn't matter what I did in life, my Dad would encourage me and be proud of me.

So I'll never forget what one friend wrote in a note to me after he'd suddenly left us all behind, wondering what exactly his dreams had been. She'd written, "You made your father very proud."

I hadn't known until that moment that making him proud mattered so much to me.

My dad was not a perfect father. I was not a perfect daughter. But his love for me, my brothers, my cousins, his God and his country (82nd Airborne!), was perfect.

Today, Sunday, October 17th, would have been his 76th birthday. I thought I'd share this photo of four of my seven cousins, my brothers and me (that's me in the red top and green shorts, always a fashion icon), at my aunt & uncle's home one Memorial Day weekend, where we all gathered yearly for the Indianapolis 500.

Your family, and many others, miss you, Dad. Happy birthday.