Happy Birthday

Tomorrow is my dad's birthday. He would've been 87 years old, and thinking of the day he was brought into this world and changed it forever makes him not being here all the more difficult.

Some people come into life and merely go along with the flow. Some people come into life and make great splashes in the water announcing their arrival everywhere they go. Some people come and are the gentle waves that shape the landscape of the shore, never to be replicated again. This was my dad. Never satisifed with being less than he knew he could and never willing to "show out" (as he would say), he accomplished many great things in his 86 some odd years.

Growing up on a farm in northern Louisiana, he learned to make do, stick with family, and to never take anything for granted. He came out of humble beginnings and used his sharp wit and self-created sense of right and wrong to make his place in the world. He served in World War II in the Coast Guard, seeing action in the Pacific theater. I could tell where exactly he was and if he shot down any Japanese planes. But that's not what I got out of his stories from the War. He told me about the time he overheard privates complaining about the barber. Apparently, if they didn't tip him, he would give them a bad haircut. Well, my dad was having none of that and apparently told the barber so. When I was in high school, an old shipmate of my dad's finally tracked him down after years of searching. We learned ( I can't remember if Dad told me or if Mr. Foster did) that Dad would make sandwiches for the men on duty overnight. My dad also kept a journal of their travels, even though this was strictly forbidden. But he had his ways. These are the things I remember my dad telling me about those days.

Then he went on to medical school and started practicing medicine. He was a general practitioner, and so he pretty much dealt with the whole gamut. During these times, practicing in a small town, he had to obey both his personal code and that of a doctor's oath, and often these conflicted with those of his patients', but he managed to make his sound advice heard. Hundreds of babies were borne into this world with his hands. Many people took their last breath under his watchful, understanding eye.

But more than a doctor or a WWII veteran, he was my Dad. If there's any life he changed forever, it's the lives of my siblings, me and my mother. Perhaps I was a bit spoiled, as he was well on his way to semi-retirement by the time I was in elementary school. I have so many memories of him, picking me up at school and going for lunch in the park, going to the YMCA pool on a Sunday afternoon, going to Church and hearing his light snores, rattling his spoons in the car (his stick-shift, loud, grumbling truck) while Beausoleil or Scottish bagpipes blared through the speakers, him at the backstop at my softball games insisting I can hit the ball, mowing the lawn and coming in for a concoction of iced tea and orange juice, us both taking great joy out of the antics of our dogs, and I could go on.

And now, I can see all of this so clearly. It's almost as if a movie reel is in my head. I can hear his voice. But then my eyes and mind adjust to reality before me, and it's unbearingly clear that he is not here. A life and light that once shone brightly and lit up my world has been blown out. But I guess on a birthday I shouldn't focus on the fact that the light is gone. I should be grateful that the light ever shone upon me.

Thanks Dad, and Happy Birthday. We miss you.