For My Daddy Dean

Holidays depress me. I'm not even talking the birth of Christ here. Or the pilgrimage away from our British oppressors. I'm kind of hard on even the sort of made-up ones.

Today is Father's Day. And it totally depressed me.

My father and his struggle with Parkinson's disease puts me on the floor each time I think of it. Simply because the man I know know now, while still my dad, is just not my Daddy Dean anymore. And a simple call home left me wailing in the car, cursing at God and His injustices.

Because see this is where my spirituality begins to break
down.

But as the day wore on, I tried to pull myself together because my daddy would not be okay with the fall-apart. Not when there are people depending on you. So instead of thinking about all the ways I feel like I am losing my dad, I tried to remember how many ways he lives within me. Like needing to carry on when things won't stop moving. Or my love of laughing until I can no longer breathe.

I think about the Christmas Eve that my dad left at midnight to fill an old lady's propane tank. And the fact that she never paid him. And he didn't care. I smile at the story my grandfather used to tell... that when my dad, as a child would walk home from school, he'd leave a trail of his leftover sandwich to feed any stray animals he saw.

I think of the Christmas he surprised us with a new VCR and a station wagon with a big bow. He was more excited than any of us. I feel his love of old country music, games, and being right.

There are a hundred faults that we share, but today, I forced myself to ignore them. And to remember that I am a stray collector, with a penchant for Waylon Jennings and dominoes, a kind heart, and the love of a good laugh.

And as I hauled 10 trash bags of rotting food at midnight with two of my dearest friends, laughing our asses off at the absurdity of me scaring off the raccoon mafia with a couple of pebbles and sheer defiance, I hope I made my Daddy Dean proud of his little girl.