Hallelujah

This is probably going to sound hyperbolic, but I really do think I had the best dad ever. I know everyone says that; every June there's an entire sector of retail dependent on the idea that people will buy their dad a mug, or a shirt, or a tablet cover, or whatever with "#1 Dad!" on it, but I really mean it. I had the best father in the world. My daddy was a quiet man, but when he did speak the things he said were hilarious, and intelligent, and so incredibly kind. He quietly and consistently did charity work not because he wanted the attention any of it brought- really only a handful of people even knew he was doing it most of the time- but because it made him happy to be able to give to others. He fostered in my sisters and myself a love of reading, knowledge, and politics that has served all of us well as adults. Daddy sparked my interest in Sherlock Holmes, the Hobbit, and pretty much anything science fiction when I was a small child, and he gave me my first computer when I was three. He brought me my first Harry Potter book and drove me to comic book and art supply stores on the weekends, and drove me to no less than three libraries a week to get my book fix. He recorded every aria I sang for the first 18 years of my life, and attended every performance I ever gave, putting each mp3 on his clunky first generation iPod. Daddy told me elaborate stories about all the birds on the lake (his favorite was the Great Blue Heron), taught me all the hiking trails in the Potowatami trail system, reeled in a Smallmouth Bass for me when my 9-year-old arm muscles were too weak, and took me back to his home in upstate New York to go kayaking in the summer. Daddy knew that I had a lot of health problems, and he didn't always understand them, but he would still let me curl up next to him when I was too sad to face the world and listen to reruns Car Talk on the radio. Every week he sat in the pews at church, beaming at mom as she sang in the choir loft (and then falling asleep during the sermon, snoring loudly). He spent a lot of time alone or with the dogs, boating or hiking, taking pictures of the woods or the lake, and he wrote a quarterly newspaper for our small Michigan town that heavily featured the wacky hijinks our pair of chocolate labs would get up to.

My dad on the day of my parent's wedding, age 22, 1973

Daddy and I, Amsterdam, 2004

Many of you reading this unfortunately never got to meet my dad, and for that I'm truly sorry. He was a rare soul. He lived an extraordinary, though far too short, life. I wish I could say that I wasn't bitter that everyone else got so much longer with him than me- I only got 18 years. I'm not sure how I'm going to get married in two and half months without him there to walk me down the aisle, and I'm not sure how I'll have children one day without him there to hold them. I know I'll figure it out, but in the mean time it hurts a lot. Tomorrow when I get ready for church I will put on the gold tennis bracelet he bought me when I was 16, pin the button with his picture that I made in college (before he died, actually) to the front of my dress, and pray that I can make it through Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School, and Relief Society without turing into a sobbing mess.

Daddy on the pontoon boat

Rest in peace, Larryboy.