I find myself already getting into a funk and a slight fight with depression and February isn’t even here yet.

February 13th will mark four years that my Dad has passed away.  I miss him so extremely much and I wish he was here watching my children grow and them getting to know them.  Instead I gather the photos I have and show them to the kids and tell them all the things he loved to do.  I tell them how he was the sweetest man ever and would do anything for anyone.  How he loved going deer and duck hunting with his son and loved fishing with my brother and myself.  I tell them how he worked hard at the same place thats across the street from where their daddy works.  I tell them how Grandpa Jim is always watching over them and keeping them safe.  I tell them he visits each of them almost every night to see how much they have grown and gives them a kiss goodnight.  I like to believe he actually does all those things for my children and for myself.

I often find myself sitting in a quite room, closing my eyes, and replaying his voice in my head “Hey Tweeter haha!”  I fear the longer time goes on the less and less I will be able to hear his voice and I don’t want that to happen.  I don’t ever want to forget anything about my dad and all the wonderful things he has done for other people and for my family.  I know he wasn’t always perfect but he was my perfect, if that makes since.

I will try my best to not let grief and depression keep me down over the next two weeks and somehow maybe change the grief feeling into celebrating his life and all the wonderful things he’s done.

This is my dad meeting Dominic for the first time at the hospital.  He brought him a light brown teddy bear and we still have it.  Dominic ask’s me once in a while who gave the bear to him and when I tell him Grandpa Jim did, he gets a big, big smile on his face.

                                                                     This is dad at Robbie’s gender reveal party.  He was pretty convinced Robbie was a going to be a boy and he was right.  Everyone else guessed girl.

          This is the first and last time dad meet Robbie.  Robbie was little over a month old in the picture.  This picture was taken at our family Christmas at my mom apartment in late December.  Two months later he died.

  This picture was taken the Christmas before the one above.

He had the most beautiful red colored beard and hair and both were so thick.  He had the smallest hair loss right in the middle of his head when he passed and he was still rocking that beard.  I have only seen him twice in my life without his beard.  When he was the sick the first time with Meningitis in 2009 they had to shave his beard off for breathing tubs and such.  And this last time a few days before he passed they had to shave off his beard too.  He looked a strange man at his funeral without his beard.

~ God Bless, Angela