Keep Moving Forward, Keep Laughing

Hi Friends. I know this is, for the most part, a humor blog. I especially like to leave you with something lighthearted and amusing on Fridays so you can have a chuckle for the weekend.

But today I can’t avoid the milestone that is finally before me.

Saturday will mark twenty-five years since my Dad died. More significantly, at least for me, it marks the first year in which I can say that I have now lived more of my life without my father than I had with him.

I have dreaded this day quite literally for half my life.

When I remember that night, a lot of it is a blur. I remember the beautiful Harvest moon. I remember the look on my Uncle’s face when I rushed off the elevator at the hospital and he broke the news to me. I remember rushing into my mother’s arms as she held me and my brother and we all just cried.

I remember going back to my apartment in College Station the next week and seeing the calendar on my desk. It was one of those daily calendars where you tear off each day to reveal the next day. It was still sitting on September 27, the day I got the call to come home because he was dying. I  never tore off anymore pages. It sat on my desk like that until the end of the year.

Someone said recently that she heard people say you would always remember these things in terms of “before” and “after”. They are right. More than any other event, the death of my father divided my life into those two chapters of before and after.

But that’s not what I want to write about. I want to write about the legacy my father left me. If you’ve read some of my previous posts, then you know my humor and sarcasm are most definitely part of my father’s legacy. It wasn’t until I was driving home from work today that I realized what the other part of his legacy is.

It’s not something tangible, that I can hold in my hand, or a conversation that we had.

It’s something he just did by example. Something that he did every day of his life.

He adored my mother and he treated her like a queen. That’s it. Nothing fancy. Just that.

And yet I realized it was the most significant thing he ever could’ve done. He and I never had a conversation about relationships, or what kind of man he hoped I would marry someday, or how I should be treated.

He just lived it every day of my life and I got to witness it first hand.

Mom used to joke that for twenty-nine years of marriage, she never had to fill her car with gas or worry about something getting fixed. Dad just took care of it.

I never heard him say an unkind word to her. I never heard him yell at her. It never would’ve crossed his mind to raise a hand to her or intentionally make her cry. In fact, I can’t ever recall an argument or anything stronger than a mild disagreement.

I learned from him how a husband should treat his wife. And in doing so, he also taught me how to be grateful for the small things that don’t seem like a big deal, but are actually signs that someone is paying attention and is thinking about me. It’s not always about flowers and hearts and grand gestures. Sometimes it’s just something as simple as fixing a doorknob that keeps annoying me, without being asked or bringing my favorite drink from Quik Trip.

And yes, sometimes he uses my car and brings it back with a full tank of gas so I don’t have to do it.

I was never aware of what a rare breed my Dad was until I was grown. It makes me miss him more.

I wasn’t there at the moment he died, but I’m so profoundly grateful that my last words to him were, “I love you.” It has eased a lot of heartache over these last twenty-five years. It changed me for the better.

Before Dad died, I had that youthful ignorance that lulls you into thinking you’ve always got one more day with someone. After he was gone and I realized how important those last words were, I made sure the people I love always knew that I loved them.

The Husband Dude and I never part ways or go to bed without saying, “I love you.” Even if we’re mad at each other.

I know Shane marvels at how I can yell at him all the way to school about something he should’ve done that he didn’t, and then give him a big kiss and say, “I love you” as he gets out of the car. But then again, he always says it too, even when he’s mad, so I guess Dad’s legacy lives on in the next generation.

One of the things Dad was most proud of was that I got accepted to and attended Texas A&M University. He never got to see me walk the stage and accept my diploma on what was my twenty-second birthday. He was too sick and too weak to make the trip. He died six weeks later.

People who are from Texas or are familiar with Texas A&M are familiar with “Aggie jokes”. They call us Aggies because the A in A&M stands for “Agricultural”. Aggies have been the butt of many jokes for well over a century. We kind of own it. Might as well laugh at yourself.

I bring this up because I used to amuse my Dad with Aggie jokes. Some were just silly and some were downright bawdy. Making him laugh was what I lived for. I don’t know what he would think of this drivel I write twice a week in my blog, but I like to think he would chuckle in that way he had, sounding like a little boy who just got away with something.

Laughter has made a lot of moments more bearable in these last twenty-five years. And so, in that spirit and because I like leaving you with something to giggle about on Friday, I have decided to share the first dirty Aggie joke I told my Dad.

Two Aggies are sitting outside the Chicken (the Dixie Chicken was a hole in the wall bar that was popular with the students) watching a stray dog in the corner, licking himself profusely.

And by “licking himself”, I mean licking his own balls.

Aggie 1 (pointing to the dog): Man, I sure wish I could do that!

Aggie 2 (looking at the dog and nodding): Yeah, boy! That would be great! I’m just not sure the dog would like it!

Yes. I told my Dad this joke. He laughed about it for an hour. I’m not sure if it’s because the joke was funny or he was shocked/strangely proud of his sweet little girl telling him a nasty joke.

And remember that calendar? The one frozen in time on September 27? I found it not long ago. I had put it away and carried it with me from home to home, for some reason. When I found it, I stared at the page, thinking I should tear it off.

I didn’t. I threw the whole thing away. I’m not that twenty-two year old girl anymore and I’m not frozen in that time or place, like the calendar page. 

I made a decision a long time ago that I would keep moving forward and I would keep laughing, because he can’t. He would’ve wanted that for me.

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring!