Six Months

Today marks 6 months. Six months since so much about our lives changed with his passing. I've thought so much about my dad, especially this past week. 

I tried to come up with one single thing that I miss most...and while there are a few big things I really miss, the real truth is that it's all the little things...

The way he tilted his head when we laughed or how he used his hands as he talked. 

His eyes when he looked at my mom and how he knew everything about her...right down to her very perfected methods for getting the perfect bite of salad.

Watching him speak, teach or lead in public, how comfortable he was in front of people and how effortlessly he seemed to capture the attention of all, whether they were children at church or colleagues at work.

Coming home and seeing him sitting on the garage steps in bike clothes with a bike upside down, adjusting something. I'd ask him what he was doing and he'd tell me briefly but then ask about where I was coming home from because he knew my knowledge of biking started and ended with me basically just knowing how to ride one. 

His friendly banter with pretty much anyone he really cared about...how his teasing was an indicator of his love. 

I am realizing that what I miss can't be described. It's the essence of who he was (and who I know he still is). I have moved back home and still find myself half expecting him to just come walking in the garage door and say "What's goin' on in here?" in his loud, playful and friendly voice. He filled a room in a way that was warm and welcoming. He got attention simply by being authentic and real. 

He wasn't perfect, but he knew it. He swore more than once, but not more often than he gave kind and wise advice to family, friends and co-workers. He taught us the art of the exasperated sigh but also showed us the importance of serving others. 

While helping with the Christmas decorating we came across this:

Cardboard dad had used to wrap the lights around. On it written "This is my last case of diet coke...12/08"...and then that sentence was blacked out, most likely by him sometime later when he decided diet coke wasn't such a bad deal after all. 

We also found boards with diagrams of which lights went where...and cords with duct tape tags covered in sharpie-written instructions. In some ways, it felt like uncovering small treasures...more of my dad. Rand and I laughed when we found a surge protector covered in cellophane which Rand guessed was there as "protection from the elements." Dad always had a system or a plan. Not to say that every system/plan was always flawless or 100% safe...but he had them, and most of the time, his plans worked.

It's all the little things...his neat, all-caps handwriting, seeing his work bench just how he left it-undoubtedly in the middle of several projects, driving his truck, finding 11 of the 12 cans of spam remaining from the case he bought and swore to my mom would be perfect cabin food, seeing his snowshoes hanging in the garage...

I realized the other day that it's just everything that made dad so...human. So real. Not perfect but perfectly authentic. After all, when it comes down to it, that is what we truly love about people. The details. It's the little things we love and the little things that drive us crazy. Maybe the best indicator of a real relationship is that we are close enough to know about all the little things...both good and bad.

I find myself paying closer attention to all of these details now in all of my relationships. I find myself taking mental notes and trying to remember moments, probably because for now there is a heightened sense of the possibility of not getting to have everyone I love with me indefinitely.

But deep down I know that it really doesn't take effort to remember them. As I was growing up and having thousands of conversations, experiences and memories with my dad...I had no idea they would be etched into my soul. I didn't know when I was walking in the woods when I was 6 or hiking with him in Alaska in May that all of the little moments would become part of me in such an effortless yet profound way. 

I often debate whether or not to share the things I write. Much of what I feel and write I keep just for me. Today I am sharing this with hope that it may serve as a gentle reminder to be grateful for the gift and blessing of our most significant relationships...the relationships safe and real enough to reveal the characteristics and quirks...strengths and weaknesses of those we love, good and bad, the things that make us...human.