It's a long time....

 Yes yes...I know I post this photo every year...both on December 6th and on Father's Day.  For the longest time, it was the only image I had...But I have a few more now...at least on my computer.

 

This one is super old...well, not really, but look how young.  40 years ago this year, he died......The photo below is how I mostly how remember  him, I choose to...40 years this year with out a Father....some have less time, some have more.  I remember thinking 40 or so years ago, that he must have been old...after all he was dying, and it's a child's view point after all.  

This anniversary is one I generally nod to...I post a photo, I move on.  But 40 years seems a little odd.  Perhaps a good time to think a little more, pause a little longer, think on things that were, and things that never were. 

I am pretty sure I never saw him as a saint...I never held him up as something he never was...He was a man of his time, not this imagined perfect Father that I almost had "if only" he had lived. Well, I lie...during some difficult times, I often wondered if I would have behaved differently if I had a father figure growing up.  Would I have had someone standing near me to not allow certain things....to step in and challenge a man about the treatment of his daughter?

Who knows....as I said he was a product of his time...there were things thrown, faces slapped, and worse.  

But now, as I age, I do often feel him closer, realize he was standing there saying to me....this is not how my daughter is to be treated.

I have no illusions that if he was alive now: that he would, at the very least, try...as my Mother has to support my youngest son...but I am guessing it wouldn't be smooth.

And in quiet moments, as I age, as Emery needed his grandfathers, they were both there.  Billy Joe was there for him as he was for me.  As an adult I had some wonderful years with my father in law.  I know he loved me too.  I know they both love Emery and have watched over him.  Billy Joe more so than my dad..as he had a relationship, albeit a short one, with Emery before he passed. But, on the day of his surgery, and the days after, Emery wore his Grandpa John's police uniform shirt....

And maybe Emery looks just a little bit like the young man in the wedding photo above and he looks a little bit like Billy Joe as well...

So these Father figures swirl around us both. 

They let us feel their presence occasionally and for that I am grateful even 40 years later.