Happy Birthday... sort of.

My dad would have been 95 today, if he were still alive.  Do they celebrate birthdays in heaven?  With angel-food birthday cakes?

Being that my Aunt Dolly (my father's sister) is 100 years old, I think daddy could have lived longer than 89 years.  He just didn't take such good care of himself for the last few years of his life, and he was so stubborn that he wouldn't let anyone else take care of him either.  Being sad and stubborn for years on end isn't such a good combination, and I think the combination of those two characteristics shortened his life some.

My dad lived with my husband and I for six months..... he seemed to like Texas just fine, but after a while he got to missing the rest of the family in NY.  Daddy told me "I was born in NY, so I have to die in NY."  He didn't think it was funny when I asked him "On which page of the Life Book is that rule written?"  So he went back to NY... and then eventually moved to New Jersey with relatives there.  I resisted the urge to tell him that New Jersey wasn't New York and never would be.

When I think of my dad, I don't see the old man that he became, I see the middle-aged father that all my friends thought was so handsome.  "That's your dad?! Wow!"   Daddy was good-looking and fun and hard-working. When I was very young, I thought he was perfect, that he could do anything and fix everything.  As I got older, I learned that he wasn't perfect, he couldn't fix everything and do everything, and some things got messed up royally and couldn't ever be put back together, and that's what made him sad as he got older.  As for the stubborn part, I think that trait runs in the family... we're all the same way, some more than others.

On my 40th birthday, my dad told me: "You can't be 40.... I'm only 39."   When I turned 50, daddy called to say: "You can't be 50... I'm only 49."  On my 60th birthday, daddy was gone, having died four years before.   So I whispered to myself: "You can't be 60.... your dad's only 59."

So..... Happy Birthday, daddy.  I wish you could have been here for your 95th.

And maybe you still are.