Tears and Pictures

I like to think I’m a deep thinker. Someone that can take real life experiences and analyze the situation. The who, the what and the why.

Everyone has a story. An interesting unraveling of events that have made them who they are. Some stories bring heartache and questions, while others bring happiness and peace. Let me try and describe the feelings that are flowing through me today.

Last week I got a call from my Mom Vicky. Vicky is my dads wife. I answered the phone and I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying. Once I got her calmed down, she told me that she had found the pictures. When Brogan first got his hair permed, my dad had told him that he had a perm once and he would look for the pictures. He never found them. When we were putting the photo montage together for his funeral all of my sisters looked, no one could find them. Vicky found them tucked in a corner of a closet.

Ok, what’s so special about a beat up old photo album, that has some pictures of my dad with an afro in it? It’s a book full of me. An entire photo album of us. This is the beginning of my story….

Now I might not have all of the details exactly right but it’s my story to tell, so here we go. My mom and dad dated for quite some time. They got married and when my mom was pregnant, my dad left. My dad was married once before my mom, twice after. My dad was a lover, not a fighter.

My relationship with my Dad had many stages. This silly old photo album uncovered a stage I didn’t know or remember. You see, I didn’t know that my dad had these pictures. I’ve never seen them before. These pictures are priceless to me.

I in fact had a dad that smiled at me when I was on his lap. A dad that kissed my chubby cheeks. Y’all I had a dad that took me to the zoo and carried me around on his shoulders! Holy shit I had that. I am 43 and thought I missed out on that part of my life.

My earliest memories of my dad are when I was 4 or 5. He was married to his third wife at the time and they had two sons. I’m pretty sure I visited less than every other weekend. Maybe more like one weekend a month. I remember not wanting to go. I was bored. As a child I didn’t understand why he would sleep so late and just want to watch baseball. Dad, I get it now. Holy shit, I get it now.

Somewhere around the age of 7 or 8 my dad married Vicky. Vicky had 3 kids of her own. Suddenly I was in a big chaotic family. Going to see my dad was anything but boring. The house was always buzzing. My dad and Vicky together had one baby. My sister Katie Ann. I was the right age to absolutely adore her to the fullest. She was my practice baby.

Then I became a teenager. Any parent of a teen knows that weekend visits get far and few between. My dad was not a part of the day to day but he was not absent. I know that if I would have needed anything he would have been there. I just didn’t need him.

I’ll get into how our relationship evolved over adulthood and what an amazing grandpa he was in another post. For now my eyes are wet and my heart is full.