6/21/15

O mio babbino caro... My beloved Dad,

It's difficult to come up with the right words to say what you mean in my life.  You have shaped so much of who I am today in so many little ways:

you taught me to take responsibility for my work and my actions,
an innate respect of other people,
the pay-off of hard work,
the joy of using talents,
that different joy that comes from service and helping others,
to appreciate the beauty of the natural world and all of its vistas,
what good road trip music is -- Loggins and Messina all the way!,
how to operate a table saw, a drill press, a hammer, screwdrivers, electric drills...
what a 2x4 is verses a 1x4, etc. etc., :)
and what a man who unselfishly loves his family does for them -- all of these things and more that we'll never know.

I am glad to know that you are proud of me.  Your belief in my dreams and that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to is one of the reasons that I am able to do just that.  I hold your trust in me in my heart and it carries me beyond my own doubts whenever they arise and it gives me strength through the challenges of "Becoming An Adult" and the particularly crazy (but wonderful) career path I've chosen.

I am equally proud of you.  As I have grown up and gotten to see you expand the touch of your talents, wisdom, and enthusiasm for serving others from the HS Choir Boosters to the Drama Dept. to  the Church Prayer Garden, to the City Arts Commission, I am only ever more impressed by how you use your passions and skills (both innate and newly cultivated!) to make an impression on the world around you.  You are such an artistic soul and, while I joke that you "play the radio" (thank you too for my wonderful sense of humor in the form of dad jokes... haha), it is constantly more apparent to me that your two artist daughters have inherited your creative passions.

"Thank you" is a phrase that will never capture all of my gratitude for your being MY dad, but, coming from the deepest part of my heart: Thank you and I love you.