To my dad...

Happy 60th birthday!  I remember the day you were diagnosed so well, the phone call I received while living in DC.  Every single day after that until the day you passed was reason to celebrate.  Every birthday that came thereafter I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that you were still here by our side.  Today, the 1st birthday to celebrate without you, the big 6-0, is a day that I longed to never come.  But it did this morning.  Instead of feeling the pain of the day, we will try and celebrate the life and love that you brought us for many many years.

Some of the things I remember most...pitching softballs in the backyard; 6 ppl (sometimes more) + luggage piled in our minivan heading out for a road trip; all of us having to take turns rubbing your head and shoulders (oh how we all loathed this); tickle tortures; sitting in the crowd at all my sporting events...every single one of them, away or home; when you would drive me to middle school on your way to work and brush your hair in the car (I always thought that was so weird); making us 'pick up wood chips' around the yard; not yelling at me when I turned over an oreo scooner from Burger King, expecting it to be as thick as a Dairy Queen blizzard, and it spilled all over the backseat of your brand new (as in - you bought it that day!) Park Avenue; the way you used to scream, "TOBY, YOU BE A GOOD DOG" and then pick him up under the couch with gardening gloves on just to put him to bed; calming mom down after leaving me in DC for the 1st time by telling her, "Dianne, it's not like she's going off to the war!"; all the cards and letters you wrote me, particularly the card you must have gone out to buy that said, "Missing You" on the front of it and all the reasons you missed me on the inside; the way you accepted all of my friends into our home as if it was their own; the way you made everyone who met you feel at ease; the way you asked Mark if I was 'dating a metrosexual' after he described Matt for the very 1st time; the way you adored Matt; the walk down the aisle; the hug you gave me in Hilton Head after finding out some devastating news; the hug you gave me at the house after I announced that I was pregnant...with TWINS!; the way you would always call me to ask how my 'little baby girls' were doing; and finally the way you always held your head high, never complained, never feared the end, you prepared us to face the world without you, and even though the world was a better place with you in it...you gave us a lifetime of memories to carry with us each and every day, especially today on your birthday.

Happy 60th Birthday, dad!  Matt and I ate some bang bang shrimp this week in your honor.  Missing you everyday.