Cards and all the things I never knew...

Today is my dad's birthday.  Each year all he wanted was a card.  He didn't care about anything else but getting a card.  He would say the same for father's day and Christmas.  I would be like "Dad seriously what can I get you? Is there a movie that you want, a gift card to a restaurant? Anything?"

"No, just a card."  I would always find this so annoying because he was a man who had everything and wanted for nothing.  I would always go searching for the perfect gift to give him: something new for fishing trips, a picture in a frame, a new gangsta movie, mob books.  I would be so excited to finally give him the gift that I had found that I wouldn't even watch him open the card.  He would open the gift and be happy with my selection.  Usually telling me that I had spent too much or I should have put that money in the bank.  Each holiday it would be the same, "Get me a nice card" 

After my father passed, I went to go see my stepmother, Teresa one night.  I had just really missed him one night and just felt that I had to go there.  We drank tea and just talked about how much we missed him.  Right before I left she said that she had something for me.  She walked over and handed me a shopping bag filled with cards.  As I looked through the bag they were all cards that I had given him.  There were some dated back to 1991.  I had no idea that he had kept them.  Teresa laughed and said when she was going thru them she laughed because I had gotten my dad the same Father's Day card three years in a row.  I had no idea that I had done that.  I must have really like the message that the card said. 

The same kind of thing happened this weekend after my father's memorial mass.  We were at my stepmother's house and right before we left she handed me a box.  I opened up the box and there were two buttons from the daddy daughter dances with the tickets from both.  He had always said that was our special date once a year.  He would come pick me up, flower corsage and all.  We would go to the dance and then to Brighams for Ice Cream afterwards.  It was one of my favorite memories because most Dad's would stand next to the wall and let the little girls just dance with their friends.  Not my father, he would steal the show and dance the night away.  He would always "request" the song "Daddy's Little Girl" and tell me that was playing just for me.  Looking back, of course that was played at the Daddy Daughter dance for ALL the girls but I don't care. I will keep that memory with me forever. 

My father's passing has so much to do with this journey that I started as well.  He lived his life to the fullest with no regrets.  I had set out last year to check things off my "bucket list" in honor of his memory and I really didn't do much of that last year.  The only item that I checked off was "get engaged in Disney World" and truly that wasn't my doing.  So when the first of the year came along and I had told my father the year before that I was jumping in the ocean on new years day, I was determined to jump in.  I even talked Geraldine into doing it with me.  When New Year's morning came, I chicken out.  Geraldine gave me such a hard time about NOT doing it that I said to myself ENOUGH!

I had to stop making excuses about the goals I wanted to accomplish in my life.  Its easy to say "I will start Monday" and then Monday comes and goes.  You have to make time to do the things that you want in life because you are going to wake up someday and realize its too late.  The excuses stop now! Make your list of things that you want to do in your life and do them.  Its that simple.  Live your life like my father no regrets, lots of love from family/friends and do the things that make YOU happy. 

Happy Birthday Dad, I miss and love you so much. xoxoxox Katherine