Happy Father's Day Pop

Time........... (c.La2009)
L... is for I love you.(c.A-G2009) Every day, even though you are gone 29 years+.
Even though you're in heaven, I feel you with me in the beauty of a sunset.(c.A-G2009)When I look up at the sky , I know you are with God. But, I still miss you.(pic.c.Lag2009)
I don't know what to do sometimes, and wish I still had you here to talk to. I miss our talks, where I blabbed on, and you listened.

Remember that time I thought that you didn't hear me, downstairs in your office? ...and you said that you had listened, even though you were so quiet? Remember I said,"Well then tell me what I said?", and you did. You heard everything. I so loved you.(pic. c.LAG2009)
I still do. Others may not know what kind of an unbelievably unconditionally, loving father that you were. I still do. When you were in the funeral parlor at your wake, remember how the people who worked with you, who we never met, knew exactly who each of us was? That's because they listened to your love. I do.

Remember how there were so many people at your wakes, that they were wrapped around the building waiting to come and see you? I do. Remember the poem I wrote you in tears, and mounted it in a drawn heart , and stood it on your coffin, and you were buried with it?...and I sent it to the local paper, where you wrote your opinions about the world that they always published , and they published my poem to you? That was my first published piece. I do.

Remember the hours you would spend in the window, combing out the knots in my hair when I would open the car window (and my hair would blow all over the place), because no one else had the patience to?...and I would cry in tears from the pain when others tried to help, but never for you because you were so gentle. I do.

Remember how you loved long hair on girls and women, and loved Nina's and my hair, and would always tell us so, but would always then add that the best hair was "your mother's" long curled locks when she was younger, before she cut it off into the shorter hair style? I do.

Remember how Nina and I had so many articles of clothing at the ends of our beds, when we were younger, and we would hide under the clothing when you came looking for us, and you couldn't find us, and then you would go looking elsewhere?...and did you fake that or were we really that good at hiding???:):):) I do- I do remember.

Remember how when I was sick, I couldn't wait till you got home, because you took care of me without complaining, with so much love. I do.

Remember when you were mad at us, and you would go down on the floor with Pooshok, or Punkin Puss, and talk to the kitties, telling them how you couldn't talk to anyone except "you kitties", because the 'women' just didn't understand (when the guys were already out of the house)? I do.

Remember how I would roll my eyes when you talked politics, like my kids sometimes roll theirs, when I do? Remember the corny jokes you constantly told, and now we four tell corny jokes as well? I do.

Remember driving Nina and me to J.A. Rhodes to buy Barbie clothes with our earned and saved up $2-3.00? ...and you would wait in the car out front, and told us to hurry, and we'd be so excited over the chosen outfit ,but you always somehow made the time? I do.

Remember, us going up and down the stairs to you singing in the choir, just to be with you, and searching you out at midnite service when Christ was Risen on Easter, and we couldn't wait to kiss you? I do.

Remember when I broke my right arm right before 3rd grade at camp, in the field playing football, and you made an army style sling out of a magazine till we drove home the hour and a half to two hours, and you said,"and maybe you'll get to stay overnight in the hospital" with a lilt in your voice, thinking that it would excite me, when it scared the pants off of me, probably because I'd been in Intensive Care without family allowed when I was an infant, and remembered everything, and then you calmed me down, and how the actual army sling hurt me more, and I liked your magazine one better, but had to wear the army one overnight, before we could go to the emergency room? I do.

Remember the broken chocolate you would bring us home from Von Leeson's in town, and I wrote a poem about it after you died ? I do.

Remember the scar on your belly from your biopsy for the Hodgkin's and you wore just your shorts/swimtrunk, with the straw skirt that you had traded in France at the World Scout Jamboree, while you were stationed in Europe, wangling a furlough from your CO in Germany to attend the Jamboree-'always a Scout!'. .. and you wore a visor and flip -flops, and the doctors said that you could smoke pot for the pain, but you never would, but you the conservative dad joked about smoking a joint,(made out of paper that we rolled up ), just to take a picture, and that you would never joke about pot, but you had the Hodgkin's and well, your life was swimming in front of you, and you stepped out of your boundary,so you did it-ie:faked it for the picture, and we all laughed and joked around, and couldn't believe that you would joke around about it, and you would tell us that for a quarter, you'd let us scratch your scar on your belly, and you thought that it was the funniest joke, and we thought it was the corniest, and we all laughed and laughed, over and over again. I do.

And remember the time I asked you to draw a picture of me, and you did, and it was good, and I was so impressed? I do.

And remember how you would darn your own socks, because you had been a scout, and knew how to sew, and wouldn't have thought of asking anyone else to do it, and you would darn them in the comfy arm chair that I now own that has been recovered, with your legs over the side arm, and you would occasionally fall asleep in it? I do.

And remember how you were excited by new gadgets, and had one of the first printers where you had to use fluid each time, and heat, etc. just to print off/kind of like mimeograph copies, and how even though we didn't have computers for the average person then, that you would've had one when they got popular, and even now you'd know all about them, this we all know, and that you'd have a Mac?hahaha. I do . I know this. You probably have a fancy, super, dooper, fun one there in heaven, helping to organize things there, and did you know that all 4 of us organize well like you. I'm sure you do.

And remember how as camp counselor and/or camp counselor director, at Tolstoy Farm(Foundation) Camp you, would be about to be thrown into the pool, but would quickly grab your wallet and pass it to me or someone else so it wouldn't get wet, as they were dragging you, to throw you in?..and this would happen quite a few times, because you were oh so loved? I do.

And remember how the campers who didn't speak much Russian would call you 'Daddy Kola', because they didn't know how to pronounce 'Dyadya Kolya', which means Uncle Nicky because in Russian you give respect to your elders and call them uncle, or auntie, or grandma, or grandpa, even if you don't know them?... and how years later when I applied for a job at a Russian camp in another state, the director wrote back to me asking if I were Lydia A. of Daddy Kola fame, of which of course I replied that I was such offspring, and how he proceeded to tell me how wonderful a man that my father, Daddy Kola was, and I knew. And I do. I do remember.

And when you liked something, like say lemon baked goods, for they were your absolute favorite, these lemony things, or the homemade tomato soup that you made out of the sauce that you tweeked and labored over, that was so good and you liked it and you would say, "I like that", in that certain way that you would say when you really liked something...and you were so proud of that soup because it tasted so good, and how you liked my tasty leftovers as I became a teenager and learned to cook, and you would say how so very delicious they were. I remember. I do.

I remember it all Pop. I remember it all, and then some. And I remember, the things that you probably thought I wouldn't, but I did....and I do . And I'll never forget, and I'll never stop loving you. And I so very much miss you, and you were taken from us way too early, at the young age of 52, and that's what I am now, and I miss the living daylights out of you, and I always say that if I could be half the parent that you were to me and to us, that my kids would come out alright.

And I feel like the friend of Dances with Wolves, in Dances with Wolves, when he leaves the group with his new wife, and his friend cries out, "Do you know who I am, I am..." ..."and I will always be your friend", ........and I will always be your daughter, and I will always love you Dad, to the ends of the earth.

That's how great a man my Dad was to us. That's how wonderful a Dad he was. That's why he was taken from us so early, because he already gave us what he was meant to give. And when you have something, and it is truly yours, you can never lose it. And you are meant to give it away, because you will never lose it and it is a gift. It is the most precious gift. And that's why I am a lucky cat. But I still miss you Dad. I still love you. I do. xo Lyeeda