White Pickups...

I saw a Ford F150 white 4 door pickup yesterday.  My first thought when I see a vehicle like that is my Daddy.  He had one for what seems like years and years but really was only a couple years.  But drove the heck out of it.

I remember taking many trips to see K and the kids in that pickup.  Or a trip to Chamberlain.  It was so my Daddy.  Big and rugged and a workhorse.

Thinking about that brought me back to other memories.  My biggest fear is that people are going to forget my Daddy.  That they are going to forget the good things he did, or the people he loved.  I want people to know that he MATTERED.  To more than just me, My Mama, K and the kiddos.  He MATTERED to the world.

As he lay dying in the hospital my Mama started recieving e-mails with memories in them.  She shared a couple with me and the love that my dad's friends had for him is awesome.  They knew he could be brusk and abrupt - but also still respected him.  He could sell snow to the Eskimos and taught me how to talk to people.  Anyone that knows me IRL knows that I can talk to anyone, anytime about anything...and I probably will.  That's what my dad taught me. 

He taught me that everyone has a story.  Everyone is interesting.  Everyone deserves to know they MATTER.  I knew I mattered to my Daddy and that is important to me.  I also received a very thoughtful e-mail from one of my Mama's friends (thanks TPO!) that let me know just how much I matter to my Mama.  I knew that I did - but it is nice to hear it from others.

As I travel this path that I haven't travelled before, I feel like I'm writing the story.  I am in charge of how I deal and what I do.  Monday?  I didn't cry.  I DIDN'T CRY.  This is the first day since probably mid June that I didn't cry.  That is a big deal and a big step towards the magic called "healing." 

Part of me doesn't want to "heal."  Part of me wants to keep my memories and my feelings and my emotions as raw as possible.  As the days pass, time takes me further and further away from Daddy.  From my ALIVE Daddy.  I don't want to forget him.  I don't want to forget how fiercely loved he was and is.  I don't want people to think that I'm magically just okay and not ask me about him.

I want to talk about him.  I want to tell stories that make me laugh.  I don't want to cry but sometimes the grief sneaks up and I will cry when I'm talking about him.  I want to tell the world about how one Sunday afternoon my Daddy decided that Gigi needed to experience a "real county fair."  We (my Mama, Daddy, Gigi and I) piled into the white pickup and drove for what seemed like hours but was probably just 30 minutes.  We pulled into the town where the "real" county fair was and the fair was....gone.  The "real county fair" was from Monday - Saturday.  We tried to go on Sunday.  My Mama and Daddy chalked it up to a nice Sunday drive and we all laughed.

My Daddy loved to drive.  He could drive and drive and drive.  Nevermind that his 12 year old daughter in the backseat was beyond embarassed and worried as he tried to navigate through southwestern Minnesota by the sun.  BY THE SUN.  There were maps people!  This was pre-GPS days but my Daddy decided to drive around and look at some flood waters and then take every single backroad he could and navigated home by the sun.  I was mortified.  There was no one with us so I don't know WHY it bothered me so much - but I'm a map person.  He did get us home.  We occasionally had to turn around because the road stopped or became a small township gravel road.  And of course it took us twice as long - but we got home. 

He always got us home.  Probably not on them road most travelled...but he got us home.  He loved backroads and hated interstates.  "You don't see anything REAL on the interstate," he would say.  Friends and I drove to Texas one spring break and he mapped out our course.  Through tiny towns and 55 mph signs we made it - had fun and maybe took a little longer.  But we got to see country that we wouldn't have if we would've stuck to the main roads.

So today?  Anywhere I go I'm not going to take my normal route.  In honor of my Daddy today I'm going to take the backroads (which will include just residential streets and not the main streets LOL).  And I'll get where I'm going - with a little more scenery.