Today is my Dad's 66th birthday. It's really strange that he's not here for us to celebrate it with him.
My intent in posting about this today is very different from my other posts on this blog. Probably for the first time I'm posting solely because I know my family will appreciate these thoughts, and not for any other reason.
Dad isn't in very many pictures, and there's a good (but really not-so-good) reason for that.
Dad is the photographer. He instilled in every one of his children an appreciation for a good photo. He reveled in my taking a photography class as a senior in high school. He helped me create beautiful pictures for my projects, and let me use his really nice camera that semester.
Probably he instilled in each of us an appreciation for goofy pictures. The fish eye lens was a favorite of ours. I don't have any of those pictures here. But we all remember.
There's one of those shirts David talked about at Dad's funeral.
Here's a favorite in our house. In spite of how his appearance changed throughout the last years of his life, his smile was constant.
Each of the kids has adopted a Rich-ism or a few. I find myself almost every day making one of the mini-Holdinators laugh using a game, a face, or a noise that I learned from their Papa. I hope that I don't forget to give him credit.
Jack's memories of Papa. He'll absolutely remember him. We will make sure of that.
13 months ago Papa came to the hospital to meet his little grandson.
19 weeks ago this evening I took Jack with me to the hospital. We were told we needed to hurry. I went through a number of reasons in my head why we would need to hurry, but that we wouldn't be able to talk to Dad or give him a blessing did not occur to me.
It couldn't occur to me.
I was holding Jack at the receptionists' desk in the ER. The look of realization on their faces when I told them who I was, it was a look of sudden quiet and lack of rushing in the midst of a place where everyone was rushing to do everything (
why would they slowly lead us to his room? I thought) should have been indicative of the reality of the situation.
It was very comforting, to me, to have Jack there. I could hold him as tight as I wanted, and he didn't mind. Jack didn't know what was going on, but he was good for a lot of hugs; somehow instinctively he understood his role that night. Love and be loved.
Papa made all of his grandkids laugh. That was what he did best with them.
That was one of the things he did best with everyone.
