Father's like mine

I’ve been humming a lot lately. People have been noticing even when I don’t notice that I am doing it. My Dad hummed. He hummed and whistled all the time. It’s very calming actually. The body's way to regulate oneself under stress or overthinking I assume. I am happy to be carrying on the tradition. It makes me feel close to my Dad who for most of my life was 300 and something miles away. 

One of my last 300 mile visits up to see him he had just moved into a new house. I was helping him organize his office. He was listening to his standard western honky tonk music, singing at the top of his lungs, and drumming on his desk; a standard practice for my Dad. He really should have been a drummer.  I was having the best time just singing and laughing with him. He was sick already at the time but in that moment he let us both forget that he was. I’m so glad for that memory. 


My brain has been working overtime these last couple of years so I’m thankful when I can revisit my parents in my good memories of them. I am certain my brain is working twice as hard to keep me from re-living any of the not-so-good ones. We all have good and bad memories of the relationships that are closest to us and when your brain is trying to rewire itself to navigate a new world without those relationships in them, your memories become a new thing it has to try and remap. I don’t want to remember the day my Dad died as much as I want to remember that day in his office singing Willie Nelson. 


Willie, Waylon, Hank and Coe. 

They will always remind me of you. 

Fedora’s, aquariums, gardening and baseball. 

They will always remind me of you.

American made cars, crazy nicknames and San Francisco. That’s my Pops. The best storyteller, larger than life and the hardest working man I’ve ever known. 


It’s harder to make that 300 mile drive now. My memories get the best of me. My mind anticipates but the expectation falls flat once I walk over that threshold to your house and it’s void of your voice.  I am comforted in knowing that your legacy and life are inextricably linked with my brothers and sisters and I. I see you and hear you in each of them. It's been one year today since you left us. “If there is any immortality to be had among human beings, it is certainly only in the love that we leave behind. Father’s like mine don’t ever die.”


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It’s Father’s Day Again

Image
  When looking through our family photos you’ll regularly find someone smiling with their mouth wide open! It’s  the Hoffmann picture pose. I’m pretty confident we got this standard Hoffmann pose from my Dad. He was the life of the party. A total jokester. When others would comment on his children’s good looks, he would say things like…”good thing they look like their mother.” I commented to him how beautiful his grandchildren were to which he replied “they all look like me!” One time when I was a kid I told him that my face hurt. I was probably laughing too much or something. He replied “well it’s killing me!” Always joking! Always laughing at himself with that big crazy smile!  He taught me that laughter really is the best medicine. Even in the most chaotic of times I will always find something to laugh about.  My Dad was a sentimental man. He still had a drawing in his office that I sent him when I was like 10 years old. It said “Rad Dad” in graffiti letters on a ...
Read more

Do this...Not that (part 2)

Last week marked three years since my mother, Karen, passed from this life to the next. I usually like to spend some time alone reflecting on where I was, what I've grown from and God's tender mercy over my life but I couldn't because I was out of state chaperoning a trip. It was a blessed time with my daughter and her friends. It definitely was not a vacation, the schedule was packed and the sleep was minimal. I missed my Mom's prayers over us. I missed her texting and being genuinely interested in all the mundane details. There are very few people in your life interested in the boring parts of it. I've been revisiting one of the last conversations I had with her. I wish I could remember all that we said but I don't. What I do remember is me telling her how grateful I was to have her. She told me she was grateful to have me too.  I'm so glad we expressed these types of things to each other. I wish I would have written more things down. I'm taking the ti...
Read more

Do This... Not That (All in love)

My Dad had a very particular way of doing things. I must have inherited it from him because my Mom always told me I was very particular...in those exact words. It's been two years since my Dad's passing, and in honor of him, I write this today. He always showed me the correct way to do things: "do it this way Jam Jam."  I've dealt with sudden, unexpected loss and anticipatory loss, and I'm still working through the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of it all, but there are a few things I've learned. As we will all experience grief, I've committed myself to do some things differently in support of others who might be on a grief journey, knowing that it all has its particular DNA. You can do with this information what you will, but I am praying that one thing might help you help others dealing with immense loss. 1. Don't tell your grieving loved one what their person might have said to them. "Your Mom would have told you..." We hav...
Read more