Happy Memorial Day

Yes, today is a day we honor and cherish all those who we fought for our country or we lost in the war. I do!

I also want to honor and cherish my dad who was in the air force and who I lost in 1993 to a heart attack. I love you dad and know you are still with me. What a gift you were to me. You were an incredible dad with so much love and wisdom that you shared with me. I learned to love and live with a lightness to life from you. You taught me how to be my own self and not let others influence me. You never forced anything on me. I was able to hear your words of wisdom and make decisions for myself. You gave me guidance with respect. Encouragement with praise and belief in myself that i can do and be anything I want as long as I was willing to work at it. You taught me to forgive rather than hate. I want to thank for all of that and then some. I was so proud to be your daughter. Still am. I remember how you would hug me so tight, as if it were going to be the last time you hugged me. I would just laugh & say, "Dad, I'm gonna see you tomorrow, you hug me like its good-bye". It didn't matter, he would hug me the same each day. I'm glad he did, because I can still feel those hugs today. He hugged me so I would remember, so I would feel his love when he was gone. It worked. If I close my eyes and think about him, its the hugs of love I feel which gives me stregnth as life goes on.

I miss your dinners of color you'd make. You would make a plate of food and say it was like art. A lil orange, a lil green, a lil brown..... Then you would let me stop once I was full. "Eat to live, don't live to eat".... I respected that. It's the little things like that. Thank you dad!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY ~ I LOVE YOU!