Father’s Day 2024

Yesterday was Father’s Day. I hope yours was wonderful. As all holidays should be. However, in reality, there is always going to be someone sad while the rest are happy.

Father’s Day 2024

I promise this will not be too much of a bummer blog, although this is the first year without my dad on Father’s Day, so please indulge me. He had been ailing for years and on September 16, 2023, my dad passed peacefully, surrounded by family.

We knew the end was near, so my 9-year-old daughter, Angel, and 13-year-old son, Atticus, and I planned a road trip to Dayton, Ohio, to visit him one last time. Two days before our 1,400 mile road trip my car broke down, so we were literally stranded at the car dealership. Reluctantly, I bought a new one. Fifty-eight years old and I had never bought a brand-new car, but given the gravity of the circumstances, I decided it would help make a sad trip less gloomy. Who doesn’t love that new car smell?!

As always, since it’s halfway, we stayed in St. Louis on the way there and back.

Dayton, Ohio

Our family roadtrips are always fun. That is the thing my dad instilled in us kids, that it isn’t always the destination, but the journey that can be the most meaningful. Having grown up in Ohio with family and Pennsylvania and Texas, our family has always done lots of road trips. Most were a lot of fun, but some treacherous weather conditions driving to Pennsylvania at Christmas time got pretty scary. And the super long road trip (2,400 miles) from Findlay, Ohio, to Austin, Texas, especially in the summertime back in the day before there was air conditioning in cars, got pretty brutal, too. Well, we had AC, but dad wouldn’t always turn it on to save on gas consumption.

An overheated station wagon on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere Texas is never fun at the moment, but looking back on it, the way we tried to keep ourselves entertained (well before cell phones) makes me realize our family can get through very tough adversity.

My dad drove semi-truck back in his college years (one reason why he loved Elvis so much), so he was quite the master of the road and showed us tips on how to do it right. All the way down to how to pack your suitcase and how to pack the car with all the suitcases, the proper way for efficiency.

Life Without Parents

I remember the day my dad died. I posted on social media the phrase, “So this is what it feels like to have no parents.” It was very bizarre, surreal.

58 years of having parents, then one day, you don’t. And just four days earlier one of my best childhood friends committed suicide. It was a rough time of my life.

Trying to focus on the responsibilities in front of me has helped – kids, my career, friends, community, God, etc.

Inside Out 2

This year for Father’s Day, the kids I went to see a movie we have all been looking forward to seeing, Inside Out 2. 2015 is when the first one came out, and it immediately became one of my favorite movies. Yes, I’m an adult that loves Disney Pixar movies! I cry almost every time.

Three movie tickets, one large popcorn and two drinks was $75. I tried to put how ridiculous that was out of my mind and just have fun with my kids. (But it was hard!)

We had fun, the movie was two thumbs up, and I’m sure my dad is smiling in heaven knowing how happy I am to be a good dad, just like he taught me.