http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GzGb09CHtg

Not a perfect man.  At times a difficult man.  High expectations.  Strong.  Strong.  Strong.  I will never stop missing him.  A funny man...always...always...could make me laugh.  Quick wit.  Jovial. 
Did I mention difficult? 
So how does such a loving, jovial man become so difficult?  Because he was driven.  He was driven to be the best he could be at whatever he set his mind to and, I think, sometimes what he set his mind to was not what should have been. 
Still to me, he was invincible.  Could take a dime and turn it into a $20 bill...and he did.  Grew up in the depression.  Had nothing, but through hard work and ingenuity he left my mom comfortable.  He never told me of his growing up poverty-style.  No, there were no stories of walking to school in a blizzard...except once.  Just once...when my firstborn daughter was about 8 years old, I had taken her to softball practice.  My dad, the die-hard granddaddy that he was, met me there.  As I sat on the bleachers, cheering my offspring, a man approached.  Immediately, he and my dad were shaking hands as if competing with the Timilsina brothers.  After much grinning and shaking my dad introduced me.  I do not remember the gentleman's name.  He was at least ten years my dad's senior.  He told the story of "the walk".  His remarks about my dad wove into my heart and mind reinforcing inextinguishable pride for my dad.  The man told me "Your daddy is the hardest worker I have ever known."   He went on to tell me when he was a teenager his dad had hired my dad, who at the time was around 12 years old, to light the furnace for the school.  My dad  would walk to school before dawn to light the furnace or boiler or whatever it was, it has escaped me now --but anyway, my daddy would walk in the cold to light the furnace early enough for school to heat before anyone would arrive for their studies.  The gentleman went on to tell me my dad continued this until the time my dad graduated high school.  When I looked at my dad, he was humbly listening, not beaming with pride nor blushing from embarrassment, just listening as if  it's something anyone would jump at the chance to do. 
My daddy's daddy was an alcoholic.  My dad abhorred alcohol.  Even when he knew his kids might be experimenting with alcohol, he never said anything, just never allowed it in his presence.  I think from an early age he recognized its destruction of his own childhood.
A few years later he would work at the gas station in town.  He earned enough for his mom to have one of the first televisions in town and to buy himself a car, which he drove like a bat outta "many a place", I am told.  
My dad came to many a ballgame of my daughter's, doctor's appointment, flat tires, when I was a single mom,  He never mentioned my difficulties, but he always showed up with a helping hand.  So I know he knew.  He would call every day -- EVERY DAY -- just to see how I was doing.  No one in my life has ever done that.  Of course, he had instilled pride in me, because he was a proud man.  The desire to follow that example caused my voice to resound each time he inquired with, "We're fine", even on the darkest days. 
He was loving.  Before any telephone conversation ended, he would bellow, "I love you".  And upon leaving, he would always walk over, kiss me on the forehead and say he loved me.  I still smell Old Spice when I think of those forehead kisses. 
He didn't hug much.  He didn't put me in his lap much.  He would just quickly step over, do the forehead kiss and be gone.  Kinda magical.  He lived that way.  Always in a hurry.  Would rush in and rush out, just making sure all was okay.  Sometimes we wondered if he had really been there, due to a quick run-through. 
Could make the best gravy & biscuits this side of any Cracker Barrel and coffee....he had a funny thing with coffee.  I have never seen, to this day, anyone drink coffee the way he did.  I still ponder why he did this.  He would perk the coffee.  Then pour it into a cup, then pour the cup of coffee into a saucer and lift and drink.  No, he didn't lap it like a puppy, but he would drink it from a saucer.  Once washed, his cup would always be placed back into the clean saucer for the following morning.  I wish I had asked him what that ritual was all about, but it will remain a mystery.  I now love coffee, but have no inclination to use more than one vessel at a time to deliver it to my sleepy self. 
He was special to me, throughout my time with him.  He will be special  to me all of my life.  Even today when I think of him, I hope he would be proud of me.  And, somehow, I think he would.  A strong work ethic, he taught and I embrace.  He would like that very much.  He would be proud of my profession that I chose, because it embodies the desire of an orderly world where people strive to keep others safe and law-abiding.  Yeah, he would like that.  He would like that I am a good wife and do not dance on tables in a sleazy bar, or in a Piccadilly.  He loved the blue plate specials at cafeterias, because they were cheap.  He would like that I love my kids and grand kids and run to the door when they come "home".  He would love that I love them, because he would have loved them.  He liked that I was respectful to others, when he was around, and he would like that I am respectful still, though he is gone.  He would like that we are clean and keep our house that way.  He would like that I am a minimalist, because he never liked clutter.  He would NOT like that I spend money -- any money.  He was all about saving, which did nothing for him in the end.  For me, there is a sadness about that.  Yes, it would disappoint him that I own more than two pairs of shoes, do not drive a clunker and that Sears & Roebucks dungarees are not my favorite blue jeans.  Sorry, Dad.  He would not get angry about that, though.  He would just shake his head as if in disbelief.
So I awoke this morning, a little melancholy.  Had my ritualistic coffee, one cup, no saucer.  Went to the hairdresser and blew a buck, too many bucks.  Had no idea why today had casting shadows.  Kept thinking about him.  Just little things.  At the point I wrote my blasphemes check to the hairdresser as I wrote the date the slow motion effect of my hand numerically spelling 2/5/11, I was reminded that he died on February 6, 1986.  I rarely think of daddy on his birthday, maybe because I wasn't born then.  But almost every year 2/6 brings Old Spice and jokes to my id and heart.  For that is where, for me, he lives now. 
As I pulled back into the driveway from my splurging morning, I turned off the ignition and wished one more time I would awaken, as I did on many a school day -- ah, for just one more morning with daddy singing "Wake Up Little Suzie"...with gravy bubbling on the stove and his cup with a saucer on a yellow sparkly Formica counter.  Miss and love you daddy.  That you can take to the bank.
If you're fortunate to have a daddy, kiss him when you can and laugh with him as often as possible.  If he is gone, take the good stuff bury deep within, and wrap it in layers and layers of pride, and disregard the challenges that they could never overcome and realize no human life is perfect or invincible.....who knew?