Moving Forward

It's been a crazy week. I have anticipated this week with bitter sweetness. I have been able to keep busy and am thankful for the commotion. We leave for vacation tomorrow. There will be one very evident absence in the condo this year. Every year we could count on one thing, Dad would be in the condo reading his paper. This was his favorite thing to do on vacation. It will feel very strange not having him there to talk to and harass about not going to the beach. This is how Dad spent vacation for as long as I can remember. He would visit the beach briefly each day and retreat back to the condo to read one of about five papers he bought daily. Then, we all got ready and went to dinner for some great conversation. He loved to debate and I, as a by-product, picked up the art and loved relating to him in this way. There are few people on this Earth that I will ever be able to talk to like that. To say I will miss him this week is an understatement. I will miss his straw hat. I will miss that he never wore sunscreen. I will miss that he will not be able to teach my girls to swim as he taught me. I will miss the conversation about current events. I will miss his poor taste in clothing. I will miss his many rounds of Come Monday. I will miss his smile. I will miss his Hush Puppy shoes. I will miss his hugs with me and my girls. Last year was such a blessing, I now know. I wish I had soaked it up more but we thought he was cured and we celebrated. I am very thankful it has been a crazy week or I would have thought about all of this more. I think this will be harder than Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Fathers Day. I'll be thinking about him a lot this week. After all, he was there 31 years ago this week when I was born.