Dear Dad,

As time goes by, the pain of your loss gets easier, but I don't think I will ever stop missing you. I really miss being able to pick up the phone and ask your advice, or just talk about things in general, especially over the last four years. I spent a lot of time in a job wasn't comfortable in and it would have been really good to have been able to bounce things off you. I think the reason I stayed as long as I did was because I felt like I'd be disappointing you. It was that job I'd dreamed of for so long, and I knew you'd have been proud of me for getting it. Once I really sat down and thought about it, I realized what you would have told me when I first realized it wasn't what I'd hoped it would be: You were already proud of me, and that if I was that unhappy, I needed to get out and you'd still be proud of me.

I'm still going through some stuff, but I'll be able to work it out. One step at a time, right?

In other news, I got to go back to that music weekend I used to go to in the fall this year. I wish Grampa Moses were still around so I could share with him how much music means to me and thank him for passing that on.

On the subject of music, did you know that I waked you with a bunch of friends at a music retreat a couple of months after you passed? I sang a song for you called "When I Go". I'd wanted to sing it for you at your memorial service, but there were too many people there and I chickened out. I'll sing it to you sometime when I visit your grave. The last verse always breaks me up:

"And should you see my wandering form out on the borderline
Between death and resurrection and the council of the pines
Do not worry for my comfort, do not sorrow for me so
All your diamond tears will rise up and adorn the skies beside me
When I go"

Anyway, just needed to talk.
Love you, old man, and I miss you

Tami

Not so sad letter this time

Dear Dad,

Been thinking about you a lot lately, but in a good way and not a sad way. It's been mostly about the little things that I could call you up about and get your advice on. Little did I realize at the time how much you were teaching me and how much I would miss that when you were gone.

A garage door spring went on my boss' garage door last week and it was my job to go get a replacement spring. So I call around to a couple of the local hardware stores where we have accounts. One place was extremely helpful, the other one I got one of the young kids who work there on college breaks and he really didn't know enough to be very helpful. So I grabbed the busted spring to take with me and off I went. I was under orders to only get one spring to replace the broken one, even after I said "Hey, maybe we ought to replace both at the same time." The helpful hardware place and I then proceeded to have a long discussion about the weight of the door (and here's where I would have called you, because I bet you could have told me!) and how replacing only one spring is very dangerous because the other spring will break from being subjected to the stress of of the new spring. I had kind of figured that one out on my own, but it was good to have the hardware guy tell me so I could use that for ammo. I go back, get the go-ahead to buy the second spring, but it's the end of the work day, so I leave buying the springs for the next day. I decide to go to the closer hardware store because it's snowing and the roads are kind of slick. Of course the don't have the right size springs. But one of the older, more knowledgeable guys is working and also tells me you need to replace both springs and that it was a good call on my part. Back to the first hardware store, get both springs and am able to pass off the project to one of our volunteers, who happens to be a carpenter.

Also thought of you on Friday, when I had to plow for the first time this winter. I didn't do do bad a job, but I did go through and critique my work from your perspective afterwards. I also had my intern do a ride-along, he wants to learn how to plow. I told him what I knew, showed him how to lift the blade to push the snowbanks back and how to back-drag. Talked a lot about you and how much you'd taught me about plowing and lots of other stuff. Chris says you must have been a pretty cool dad. I said, yeah, you were.

We went in on a pig from my friends' farm. I remember what you told me when I was little and you'd go in on a pig with someone. "Don't name it, we'll be eating it later" or something along those lines. I went and visited the pigs, helped Holly and Sue with chores a couple of times, and now I am enjoying a freezer full of pork. Best bacon I've ever eaten, by the way.

Bandit's been having some medical issues lately. And with typical Bill luck rearing it's head, it's something that has our vet stumped. She's never seen anything like it before. Oh, great. Of course it can't be something simple or easily identified, that would be too easy. Why is it that things can never be easy in our family? You got an answer for that one? No? Yeah, I didn't think so. But Bandit's getting better, so I guess that's all that really matters.

Well, I've got some serious video game plans for my day. I know you don't get the fascination that Ritch and I have for gaming, but hey, it amuses us, so there.

Love ya, Pops!

Tami

Happy birthday

Dear Dad,

Today would have been your 66th birthday. I have a harder time dealing with your loss on the anniversary of your birth than I do on the anniversary of your death for some reason. People keep telling me it gets better. People are full of shit. Maybe it gets easier in time, but I don't think it ever gets better. Ritch and I were talking a couple of weeks ago (we've both been dealing with some weighty issues lately) and we agreed that the hardest thing is not being able to pick up the phone and pour our troubles out to you. You always had something to say to us, sometimes it was good advice, sometimes it was something that just made us laugh and feel better for having laughed about it.

Sundays are the days I miss you most. Our 6 AM phone conversations before I'd go to work when I was at home, or coffee and breakfast out when I was down visiting. The banter back and forth about the amount of milk and sugar that Ritch and I put in our coffee, bad puns, and jokes about what to do with a frozen 20 lb. turkey that you'd been given the night before Thanksgiving. No one gets the "but was it frozen" line now that you're gone. It's no fun having an in joke when I'm the only one who gets it. I still find myself picking up the phone to tell you something every once in a while.

I miss being able to pick your brain about problems at work. I wish I'd asked you how to pour a slab, how to fix dozens of things and the best way to sharpen a lawn mower blade. I find myself quoting some of the things you'd say, usually about 4-wheel drive SUVs and the people who drive them and your line about how any idiot can mount a plow on the front of their truck but not everyone knows how to use one. I wish I could tell you about all the things I learned from you and been able to put into practice. I frequently tell people "My dad taught me how to plow" with pride in my voice. I also know way more about bridge construction than anyone not in the trade should know. I remember you telling me to find out where the locals gather and to get my coffee there, to learn all the backroads in a new area because you never know when you're going to need to know where they go and I've put that advice to good use.

I miss your smell - Lucky Strikes, gasoline, and honest working-man's sweat. I miss the bear hugs out in the dooryard and you telling me to drive safe when I'd leave. I miss the love and pride that shone from your eyes when you'd talk about us to others. I miss riding backroads with Johnny Cash on the tape deck and listening to you tell me about our family history, even if I'd heard it a hundred times before. I miss stopping and watching deer in the fields at dusk and sharing the beauty in silence.

I feel your loss as a great ache, but I know that I wouldn't trade it for anything. It only hurts because I know what I've lost.

Happy birthday, Dad. I miss you.

Random, deep thoughts

Dear Dad,

It's been a while, but you're on my mind and in my heart every day. I really miss you and so does Ritch. I don't think either one of us realized how much we turned to you for advice or an ear until you were gone. We've both been going through rough patches lately and your advice is sorely missed.

We're still trying to decide what to do about the Pond. Ritch wants to sell, I want to keep it. I need to go see Ritch and the two of us need to work it out. I've still got some money set aside, hopefully it will be enough to buy out Ritch's share. I can't imagine not having that place in my life. It's where I feel closest to you. I figure I've probably missed newt-mating season this year, I'd sure like to be able to see it in future years.

Thanks for the visit last October. It came at a good time, like I said, I've been going through a rough patch. There are people I can share that with and people who would label me a nut for believing it. But how else do I explain your scent in my car when you've never been in it, and there wasn't anything that had ever been in your presence in the car for a very long time. And my friend Michael smelled it, too. I miss that smell - wood smoke and Lucky Strikes, sweat, gasoline, and Ivory soap. The unique melange of smells that says "Dad" to me.

We had a bird-watching festival at the park yesterday. I didn't get to take in much of it, I had a volunteer crew that I needed to work with. But I did get to catch the last program of the day. A place called The Center for Wildlife came with three birds (and no. before you ask: no frozen turkeys!), a great-horned owl, a red-tailed hawk and a falcon called a merlin. Learned all kinds of cool stuff that I didn't know about owls before. Tell you about them some other time, though. I also got to see a bittern last week while I was out and about posting fliers for the festival. I was pretty excited, first one I've managed to catch a glimpse of, ever. I miss sharing this stuff with you in person. Mostly because of all the bad puns and stupid jokes would manage to interject into the conversation, but also because you'd share my excitement and wonder over the small, silly things.

Oh, hey, and I've been having Bill luck wicked bad lately. Every piece of equipment I touch lately seems to crap out on me. Any suggestions on how to exorcise the bad spirits? Want to come haunt my shop and fix my equipment for a couple of weeks? Just don't blow anything up or catch anything on fire, okay?

Well, gotta go. My pizza's getting cold.

Miss you, Old Man.

Love, Tami

Two years gone

Dear Dad,

Monday it was two years that you've been gone. Some days it seems like a long time, other days just yesterday. People keep telling me it gets better, still waiting for it to happen, though. In those two years, I've realized a bunch of things.

First, just how much like you I am. When I was a teen, that thought would have horrified me. Now that I'm older, I think it's pretty cool, especially since we didn't live in the same house.

Second, I appreciate your abhorrence of working in the cold. I really understand why the heat in your truck was always on full-blast in the winter. I do the same thing, Jason hates it. I can't set the thermostat at home to full-blast, so I spend the winter wrapped up in blankets and shawls. And do I have to mention that having to use an outhouse at 10 degrees is no fun? No, I didn't think so. I keep telling people that I liked winter better when I didn't have to work outside in it.

Last, I have come to realize that not only were you my dad, but you were also one of my best friends.

I have a hard time with the weeks leading up to the anniversary of your death. The anticipation is worse than the actual day, for some reason. It could also be that this year I made a point of planning something fun for that day. I took a friend going through rough times herself to a concert. I wanted to go see this guy, but I never would have gone on my own. It ended up being a very good day. I talked a lot about you, and took your old wool workshirt with me. It's my official "Mosey Shirt", still smells like you.

Anyway, I still miss you.
Love,
Tami

Small treasures

Hey Pops,

Sorry it's been a while. Things get busy, and next thing you know, its a couple of months later. Anyway, thought I'd let you know how much I miss our early Sunday morning phone conversations. I miss telling you about my week, the good stuff and the bad, and giving you the weekly wildlife update. There are other people I can tell, but it's not the same.

We got a new plow truck this year. A new new plow truck, as in not new to us but from a dealer new plow truck. I like it, except it's kind of an odd beige/grey color (the official color is "Granite") instead of dark green like a proper park truck ought to be. And it's a Dodge...wonder how long it'll be before the transmission goes.

The morning wildlife sightings are pretty good on the back roads I take to work. Last winter, I saw a deer getting a drink from a stream that flows through a marsh, just a quick glimpse and a "did I really see that?" thought immediately after I passed the spot. A couple of weeks ago on a weekend morning when I was the only car on the road, I saw a fox crossing a field. I stopped and watched him and he watched me, and then I drove away leaving him to whatever fox business he was about that frosty morning. Sunday, a red-tailed hawk flew by just above windshield height, being mobbed by a flock of crows. And I frequently have to stop for turkeys in the road, and no, before you ask, they were not frozen (no one else gets the joke, guess that's what they mean by a private joke, huh?). Speaking of turkeys, I was checking the campground after the first snow storm of the season and discovered a really nice feather. Then I found another one, and a couple more and then it looked like a bird exploded, there were so many feathers around. I did some tracking and pieced together what happened: the turkeys had been roosting in the campground, and a fox had made the campground part of its territory and the two crossed paths. And the fox ate well that night and the little ranger got some wicked nice feathers out of the deal. They go nicely with the deer skull, antlers still attached, that a park visitor found and gave me. And last week, a tourist stopped to ask me a bunch of questions just outside the shop and two deer zipped by just behind him. I have to admit to not giving him my full attention, the deer were far more interesting and he never saw a thing.

Well, that's kind of it for the wildlife report from this neck of the woods.
Talk to you later.
Tami

I am definitely my father's daughter

Dear Dad,
I've been having what I have now come to call a "Moe Day" in your honor. It's one of those days when I manage to have misadventure after misadventure, usually involving blood, bruises, mangled fingernails or all of the above. It all started last night when Jason and I were carrying Kathy's air conditioner up from her basement. Jason's end of the cardboard box let go and it landed on my shin. Ow. Ow, ow, ow. And did I mention ow? I woke up with a hellacious bruise on my shin, just above my foot.

This morning, I managed to step backwards into an open heating duct in my boss' house. No injury this time, just felt wicked foolish. And my boss freaked out and made me show him my foot to make sure I wasn't sprained or bleeding. That was embarrassing. Next on the agenda were some bridge repairs on the back side of the mountain. The planks are so bad on that bridge that they don't just break, they disintegrate if you look at them too hard. I was trying to get one of the planks off without damaging the one next to it, when it disintegrated and both I and the crowbar went over the side of the bridge and into the muck. Things were said that probably shouldn't have been, just as well there were only the trees to hear me. I pulled myself out of the mud and back onto the bridge and got a few more chunks of plank pulled up, along with the rubber that was laid over the stringers. I tried knocking the rubber off the nail by beating it with the hammer. You know how this ends, don't you? I thought you would. And yes, I did manage to hit my thumb with the hammer. No swearing this time, just a lot of screaming, once I got enough breath back to scream, that is. You know that saying you have: number than a pounded thumb? Well, I wish my thumb were numb, would certainly make opening doors and hitting the unlock button on my keys easier at the moment. I don't know if I'm going to keep the nail yet. Remind you of when I used to come visit? "Hey Dad! How many fingernails you got this time?" And just after all that, my bug repellent wore off right about then and the skeeters and deer flies descended in droves.

It was definitely a Moe Day. Wish you were still here, would have liked to have called you and we could have laughed about it together. The thing I kept hearing all day was you saying "Next trick?" Miss you, Pops.

Love,
Tami (definitely not the milkman's kid)