Thinking About Dad

Lately, I have been thinking about Dad. He passed away last March at the age of 93. Now that we are in November, the month we share the same birthday, this will be my first birthday celebration without him. Interestingly, a few months after Dad passed away, my nephew's son was born on his dad's birthday. In a way, it feels like I'm handing over the reins to a son who shares his birthday with his dad. Funny how things turn out.

One thing Dad was known for was his generosity. He gave of his time and money. When I was young, Dad led the Royal Ambassador program not only for our church, but for Galveston County. We received numerous condolences from men across the country whose lives the RA program changed. Even recently, someone was talking with me, and he mentioned how he grew up in the RAs. He spoke fondly about the trailer full of canoes that our church loaned out to other churches for river trips. We kept those canoes at our house, and there were a few weekends when they weren't loaned out. Dad bought most of those eight canoes and gave them to the Galveston County RA program. Other men in Galveston County donated the trailer and a couple of canoes.

When I started to work at Boeing in 2006, Dad was working in the same building. He and I carpooled to work for a few years. That is when I feel like I got to know my dad. My brothers had more in common with my dad than I did. But as we drove to and from work, he told me about his early career in the Air Force and NASA. Things he could not talk about before. He would say that we would "talk shop." I really enjoyed those conversations. On Fridays, we would stop at Ashley Donuts on Bay Area Blvd so he could buy a box of donuts to share with the people he worked with. When he got back in the car, he would always say, "Don't tell your mom!" I thought that was funny.

As my birthday approaches, I try not to think about this being my first birthday without Dad. In my life, there was only one birthday when I was not with my dad. That was when I was working in Florida. So, the torch of sharing a dad's birthday has been handed to my great-nephew.