It’s not always death that claims a father. Sometimes it’s as easy as a choice.

It's personal and it's uncomfortable, but it didn’t used to be.  It’s that one day, once a year, the day we all recognize the man in our lives for working hard, for loving us, for building forts under dining room tables, visits to Yellowstone Park, riding space mountain at Disney Land over and over and over because everyone else was still too scared, sitting on massive pieces of drift wood on the beaches of California smiling as he took pictures before we climbed back into our Brady bunch station wagon to continue our cross country journey. These memories are as real as real can be.  Handing me the keys to company cars as my mother glared on, slipping cash into my pocket, quietly opening the door at night to my bedroom and I would hear “You ok Trace? Something told me to check”. Using his architect skills to help me free sketch George Washington (because he was just that good) on a report cover and having that report make it to the middle of the bulletin board. That report lives on in a box…funny, what survived and what didn’t.

The person, who initiated the beat of my heart, also had the power to stop it. I unknowingly opened my heart and let him in, and someday, maybe, I might get over him.

Until then I deal with my memories as best I can. I deal with memories like the Thanksgiving day when we all made beards and tall hats and sat out on the corner of our house and waved at cars..because he was just funny like that. In my eyes there wasn’t much he couldn’t do. That he couldn’t fix. Words didn’t come easy, but I knew that I was loved. It was understood. That day, the day we celebrate the "him" in our lives seems long ago and  was celebrated to the moon and back. We thought he hung the moon. He had no completion. Favorite foods were baked, favorite candies bought, cards labored over for just the “right” words.

We are so far away from those memories and even that man. There are so many times I would like to tell him hello, or hear him quietly say my name telling me you did good…really good as his eyes shown. He always let me get by…

It’s not always death that claims a father. Sometimes it’s as easy as a choice. Sometimes the

repercussions of that choice flow so fast, so hard and the current so strong that there is no going back or finding the relationship you once had because that person doesn't want to be found. Plain and simple.  I know he loved me, a long time ago and even now but the silence that replaced him, that replaced me, that replaced us..is deafening.

 So glad, so so very glad that my Heavenly father will never choose to walk away.  Aren’t you?

Love your people-tell them. Don’t settle for a text or voice message. Hug them. Love them.