Memoir Monday

I am so pleased to be able to write a blog post memoir that will be linked to my friend Chris’s blog for inclusion in her Memoir Monday event. 

I can not think of any finer person than my own father to begin this post. Especially on a wintry day in Ohio, like today.  When I lost my father to Lou Gehrig’s disease many years ago, that first year was such an adjustment because my father was “always there” to rescue me on such days as this.  He carted me to all appointments and activities for the children.  He never liked me to go it alone and shown up at my side door often in his Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer to see if I needed anything while he was in town.  It was very hard to let go of that when he passed.  But, in time, I, his little girl…grew up. 

I don't think it was by mistake that my father was born in the month of May, married in the month of May, and died a few days before his birthday in the month of May.  May is a month of many celebrations and memorials.  My father was a Marine, a veteran, and I always ponder how fitting it is that the Lord brought him forth in May, as Memorial Day is celebrated in May, as well as the beautiful memorial of Our Blessed Mother, Mary.  My father lost his own mother very early on in his life; he was only 6 yrs old when she died of a brain tumor in 1939, when there wasn't much that could be done for such diseases.  Mary, Our Holy Mother became his mother. And she surely must have been watching after him as his young life took many tough turns but he somehow managed fabulously on, not without emotional scars mind you, but in being a hard giving individual, fighting for our country, working diligently for his wife and family as a successful business man, and etching into us that you can do anything you set your mind to.  For this I am grateful for the lessons my father taught, not usually with words, but actions. 

My father as a baby on his mother’s lap, with one brother looking on (there was also a younger brother born later)

And so my father passed away, nearly nine years ago now, just a couple days before his 71st birthday in the month of May.  Only a week later we celebrated Memorial Day, and there was never a Memorial Day ever so poignant as that one for us, that year.  When I visit my father's grave site to this day and see the cross and veterans of war symbol, I remember he was a man from a passing generation that stood for God and Man.  He lived it.  For all these men that withstood immeasurable obstacles and hard times that their children just did not know because they provided a more comfortable life for them, I honor in my heart deeply and with prayers of gratefulness.  This Memoir Monday, I remember my own father, and all the men like him who made life easier for their own families.