My Daddy died 18 years ago today

My Dad and Mom



Today I will think of my Daddy often for it is the anniversary of his death.
I hope you don't mind if I talk about him a bit.

He was an outdoorsman. He would hunt for deer and elk every Fall. I would be ready for beef by the summer after having the venison for so long.

My Daddy worked so hard. My Dad planted an orchard and worked hard taking care of it. I can remember him coming in from working on our family's cars with a lot of grease on his hands. He was on disability because of his heart so I was blessed to have him home all the time. I didn't realize until I was an adult that we were on the poor side. I guess when you feel loved, you don't go hungry, you have a roof over your head and you are happy playing with your little sister because the older siblings are off to school you don't see the negative side of things.

He loved to fish. I have a picture of me when I was about 3 with my Daddy. I was holding the fish he had caught (almost as big as me) and the story my parents told me was that I just had to hold that fish. When I was about 16 we went to Ocean Shores in Washington State (Washington is where I am from) and I got to go charter boat fishing with my Dad. I was the only girl on the boat and the youngest and I outfished everybody. I caught the biggest fish of the day and my Daddy couldn't have been any prouder. He did catch one fish. It was the ugliest fish I had ever seen, it was sea green inside and out. I asked my Dad if he was going to keep it and the way he said "yes" was like of course I am going to keep it. It was a flounder and very good when we had it for dinner.

In the few years before he passed away he would say things that he never talked about before. One time he told me that he should have said I love you more when me and my siblings were growing up. Before that I don't think I thought about it to much because I had always felt loved, don't get me wrong it is nice to hear those words but there was no doubt in my mind that my Dad and Mom loved me. Maybe it was because I could see how much they loved each other.