Everyone wants it.
Many strive for it.
Some achieve it.
Few are the dictionary picture of it.
It’s the anniversary of my papa’s 93rd birthday today.
Really, outside of my own children, I don’t think I loved anyone as much as I have loved him –there are few people in the world like him. My entire youth was spent growing up in his home or next door to it, he was as much a father to me as my own father.
One of 12 children, he left home at 13 with an 8th grade education to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps to learn his trade as a “Cat Skinner” and send money home to help his family during the depression.
When that was over he and his brother became train hoppers to bum around for work.
The story goes that when that wasn’t working anymore, his brother said he knew of a place where they could get a bed and three squares a day. That would have been the army, right before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Which then landed him in a prisoner of war camp in China for nearly four years.
Shortly after coming home he met my grandmother, fell in love and they were married within a month and went about building a life together that lasted over 50 years.
They spent those first few years after the war living in a trailer while he built his own business as an excavator, after that he and my grandmother built their own house from the ground up.
Life gave him lots of hard knocks and not because it wanted to help him, it just was what it was, life giving him the knocks, but it brought out the best in him.
He was always is own boss, cool as a cucumber, nothing could ruffle him –and one of the most pleasant characters that you’d ever want to know.
I was more flighty and nervous then he was and I always wished that I had inherited his character and temperament.
He was always telling me; “Sis, don’t wet your diaper or get your undies in bunch! It’s all gonna work out.”
Turns out, my apple didn’t fall too far from his tree after all.
But it’s like a good whiskey, it has to be put through the fire to distill out the impurities, just like he was put through the fire.
And though I’m not much of a drinker, I do know that when you do it right,
It’s gonna be smooth…
And that’s what you want, right?
So don’t fear those paths that get bumping and out of your control, it’s a journey and everyone has to learn how to share the burdens of our humanity and imperfections, just find the right people to share the path with.
There are always going to be dark and uncertainty mixed in with the joy and light. But when all the right people, do all the right things, for all the right reasons –something awesome this way will come!
Just be patient while it builds up a head of steam.
Happy Birthday, Papa!
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