Happy Birthday, Daddy

Today I'd like to celebrate how awesome you were, Dad.
And to thank you...
...for taking us four kids in winter and heaving us, high, right over your head, knowing we'd come down softly in 4 feet of snow; Stepping into your cupped hands we knew we'd be projectile in seconds and relished the thrill of every pitch.
...for traintrack excursions, long walks in the woods and fields behind our house catching butterflies, minnows and tadpoles and bringing back buckets of gigantic blackberries you'd make into cobbler if we didn't eat them all first- long before developers came and tore everything down for their cardboard subdivisions. We've never forgotten to put our ears to the tracks to know if the train is approaching.
...thanks for the garden we planted together and you then taught us to tend. We now know to water at night so the hot sun won't suck up the moisture, and that there is no smell as fresh as the tomato just picked from the vine.
...for the days when you decided a Neighborhood bike ride was in order; you'd lead like Pied Piper and word spread like wildfire; neighborhood kids would file in like so many bright mice with our family of 6...Now we all know the cyclists' hand signals for right and left turns.
...for bringing home road kill and making mom fry up that squirrel in the pan. We for sure know it tastes just like chicken, and that a squirrel's foot does not make a good lucky charm for very many days.
...for the time i served you my homemade pumpkin pie and after you gave it thumbs up I told you there'd been weevils in the wheat, and I'd made it anyway. And you were silent for a moment before I realized you were laughing so hard there were tears on your cheeks, and then you said, as an order, "Go take a piece to Mother."
And although I hated your saying, "Because I said so," and "I don't care!" and "Aww dry up!" and hated the times when we didn't seem to understand each other at all, and your slammed doors and all of us screaming and that you yelled "Next!" when I started my violin piece on the front porch at the impromptu neighborhood concert - Though that killed me,
I know you cried when I sang that Anne Murray song, "You Needed Me" at the school talent show when I was 12, and I know you loved me more than you'd say.
I love that you:
...drove me to school on the front handlebars of your bicycle until the third grade
...hated Opera and loved Karen Carpenter, Neil Diamond and Elvis.
I love that when you started to lose your eyesight you watched each of us perform onstage with your binoculars from the front row, frightening all the girls in the Chorus.
love that you...
...were able to tell a mockingbird from the bird it was feigning to be, had a perfect peacock call that you used in public, and that you caught a baby parakeet in the bushes outside your office in Florida with your hands and brought it home to us for our first pet. Tweetie Pie.
...were always feeding our cat, Fred, under the table after telling him repeatedly to forget it.
...never really knew the words to pop songs but sang out anyway
...preferred watching Star Trek to going to Mass and that, very occasionally, we were able to use the show as an excuse to skip church
...always bragged about us even if you didn't praise us to our faces
...that you always wanted to help us with math homework and then when you were suffering in the hospital you had Mom bring you Math textbooks to get through the hardest times and it worked
...you sat us down to watch nature programs and took us to the zoo to learn more
...you loved cars and appreciated my taste in engines if not my taste in men
...you howled at the moon when it was full
...you knew it would rain on my birthday every year
Thank you for teaching us to tie our shoes and shoot arrows and to ride a bike and to fish, for teaching the boys to fix their cars and tie ties and me to bake pies and fry eggs, and for never making me mow the lawn. Thank you for not littering, for breaking your ribs catching butterflies, for picking up your sons from basketball practice with an empty tandem seat, for bringing home gifts from the Salvation Army, for always sending us straight to the encyclopedia with all of our questions, for trying to instill the importance of finishing what we began, for talking to bears, for teaching yourself to play the guitar, for painting the bedroom Mom's favorite color as a surprise...
We love you for being an ox through a physical hell that most people will never imagine in their lifetimes and that I wouldn't wish on a soul.
Thank you for waiting for all of us. We wouldn't have missed you for the world.
Like you knew you would miss the rain. Like we miss you now.
Your first and only daughter,
julie ann