I am sitting next to my dad’s hospital bed. He will be 85 next month. We just put him in comfort care. He has a few hours left.  He became a college professor, after being told he was not smart enough to become a college student. And spent the rest of his life proving his them wrong. He was also a gentleman farmer with a 3 acre mini farm with fruit trees and berries and potatoes and every veggie in the world. He loved making his own juice, from cider to grape. He would dance in the grocery store before it was cool, and sneak us grape sodas on car trips.

He was a spectacular dad. And a super fun papa and greatgrandpapa.

He asked Shane and I to dinner after he and my mom divorced. He made us browned butter and Mizythra spaghetti. Only he thought it was brown *sugar*and Mizythra. He shrugged and said, oh well, I just didn’t want to make a dessert too.” it was delicious but we all gained about 100 pounds. 

Another time we left him alone with a brand new electronic keyboard one Saturday afternoon. We came home and he had written an entire rock opera. 

I asked him once what his greatest regret was in life. He said it was thinking that working all the time was a moral imperative.  And that he didn’t continue with his high school pop band.

For 30 years, we went to Taco Bell every Thursday night. We’d talk about our week and what was happening at work and how things were going. The kids would show off their homework and awards and projects.

Life is so short, so fragile, so fast. 

My father taught me joy. He taught me persistence. He taught me to work hard. He taught me to be creative. He taught me to forgive. He taught me to be adventurous. He taught me about consequences and disappointment. 

We cheapen life so much. People are an interruptions, an irritation. We often realize way too often too late, that people are the only reason we are here. The sole purpose of life. 

I’m going to miss my daddy. But someday, we will work together again, hunting agates, building furniture, making each other laugh with stupid jokes. 

Until then, he will always be in my heart. Because I want to be a lot like my daddy when I grow up.