Father's Day 2008

If I'm being honest, I stopped looking forward to Father's Day 16 years ago when my father was no longer here to honor and celebrate his life as my father. It actually hurts to go into a cardstore and pick out a Father's Day card for my husband while trying not to look at the cards meant for "best father" or "best Dad". Doesn't everyone really think that their father is the best anyway? I know I did and, come to think of it, many people at his funeral told me that they thought he was the best father ever and some wished he had been their Dad as well. He just had that ability to make everyone think they were special. There was nothing phony about it. He couldn't have been more sincere.

Here's a picture of him with Michael as a toddler. This was his pride and joy and he took every opportunity possible to spend time with him. Sadly enough, he died the week before Michael was to play in his first of many baseball All Star games. I look at Michael today and just know that my father would have loved everything about him. I could just see my father giving Michael tips on "how to play poker."

The day I was told that my father had died in his sleep, at the age of 72, still remains as the saddest day of my life. I just couldn't fathom a world without my father in it. Like many other sons or daughters caught in this situation, I have no regrets about our relationship as it was perfect in so many ways. As his only daughter, we had something so special and he never let me forget it. One funny thing about him was the fact that he never called me by my given name, Nancy. For as long as I can remember, he called me Sarah. If he wasn't calling me Sarah, it was simply just "Daughter". If you're wondering where the Sarah came from, it was after the actress Sarah Bernhardt who apparently cried at the drop of a hat. My father said that when I was younger, all my brothers had to do was look at me sideways and I would start crying. Little did he know, I was crying so he would yell at them. Who am I kidding? He knew why I did it. The quality of this picture isn't the greatest but it's one I just love.

I should mention here that right after he died, we adopted an abused dog. She already had a name when we got her. Her name was Sarah. Just a bit too coincidental for me. She came at the right time in my life and became my best friend when I needed one. Who's to tell me that my father didn't send her to me or, better yet, that she wasn't my father reincarnated. Ha, ha.....I'm going too far with that scenario. Here's my beautiful Sarah at the beach with Michael about eight years ago. If you're thinking she bears a striking resemblance to Belle, you're right. I got Belle a month after Sarah died because she reminded me so much of Sarah.

The cruelty of the timing of his death still makes me cry. It happened just a few weeks before my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and I had a huge party planned and it was going to be my chance to say thank you for giving us all a tremendous start in life. People were coming in from all over the country and instead of using their plane tickets to come to the party, they used them to attend the funeral. Sadly enough, my mother had a stroke the day after he died from the shock of it all so, in one weekend, my life changed forever. This was the invitation I had made for their party. After he had died, I remember going to their house to pick up some things for my mother, who was in intensive care in the hospital, and, on a piece of paper on the table, she had written down the songs she wanted them to play at the party. Then, on the refrigerator, was a note from my father to my mother telling her that he loved her. And this, after almost fifty years of marriage.

I gave the eulogy at his funeral because there were just so many funny stories to tell about the greatest man I ever knew. I just wanted everyone to go away with a little slice of the way I knew him. There were many people at his funeral that I had never met and they all had stories of ways my father had touched them. One story still remains with me and I'd like to share it here.

My mother was a great one for always sending him up to the avenue for one or two items she needed in order to make dinner. Since they lived in the city, this was a short walk there and back. For some reason, it would always take him hours to run this little errand and my mother would always be yelling at him for taking so long. At the funeral, a woman came up to me and told me something about my father that I never knew. This woman had a son who was mentally retarded (and excuse me if this is no longer politically correct to say it this way but this was the way she reported it to me). Her son used to sit outside her house on her steps. Apparently, when my father went up to the avenue for my mother, if this boy was outside, my father would sit with him for at least an hour just talking to him. These are the stories that still bring tears to my eyes because there were so many like this.

In a way, my father was like Archie Bunker both in his political correctness and also in the way he always used the wrong words to describe things. When I was working the summer after high school, he would always be the one to wake me up in the morning. He would yell into my bedroom, "Sarah, your tea is ready and your heaters are on." I'm even getting choked up typing this line. "Heaters"....what the heck are heaters? Of course, he was referring to my electric rollers that he had to heat up for me before I got out of bed.

When I turned 40, I was out of the house most of the day as Bob was taking me and the kids to dinner at Windows of the World to celebrate. When we returned home that evening, there were over twenty messages on my answering machine all wishing me a happy birthday. Back then, we used the kind of machines that had little cassette tapes in them and I was smart enough to remove that tape and save it. My father is on that tape wishing me happy birthday and singing a song that he always sang to me......it's called Nancy with the Laughing Face....and starts....If I don't see her each day, I miss her. Sorry for her, she has no sister. Picture a tomboy in lace, that's Nancy with the Laughing Face. Little did I know then that this is the last birthday my father would ever be alive for and, sadly enough, my last happy birthday. Don't get me wrong....I do enjoy my birthdays but can they ever fully be "happy, happy" again and the honest answer is no because there is no day that I wake up and don't realize he's not here anymore.

So my wish on this Father's Day is that my kids feel the same way about their father as I did about mine. As I'm typing this, Bob is on the phone with Michael right now and Liz and Bryan were just here to have dinner with us so I honestly think my wish has come true.