Lots of things have happened over the last few weeks, lots of family has come and gone and my daughter Payton turned 2. I can’t believe she’s already 2!!!! I know all parents think their kid is special, but we’re certainly lucky to have ours and have been blessed by all the memories the past 2 years.
We went to Paytons 2 yr doctor checkup yesterday, which is alway entertaining. The doctor asked us, “Have you noticed her growing quite a bit?”…I said, “Not really, we see her everyday, so it seems normal”. Of course he kind of laughed and said, “Well, its certainly a healthy amount. She’s almost grown 4″ since January”…..oops. At this point she’s just short of 3’1″. It’s pretty funny considering Jess is only 5’1″. So what age will she be sailing past her mom??? I’d imagine she’ll slow down growing sometime, but its still funny to see how fast she’s coming along. I’m just hoping we don’t have a boy someday and he’s tiny and she’s really tall. Talk about awkward.
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Other than that, she had a great birthday, which included decorating her own cake. I can certainly say that the whole “decorating” her cake thing, went much better in my head than it did in reality. I went to the store and got these granule looking candies in neon colors. I figured she’d love to put them all over her cake(which she did). The only problem is that she got a little agressive with the shaker and we ended up with a whole LOT of it on the cake. Sadly, when we ate the cake it had the texture of someone throwing a bunch of sand on her cake. She still ate a whole lot of it, so it sure didn’t bother her, but we were a little taken back by the sand in our cake.
Obviously, the elephant in the room all day was the lack of my dad. This was our first big holiday or family event without the big guy. It was one of the hardest things I’ve gone through in my life. He adored Payton, and would have loved nothing else than to be there for her to read her a birthday story(and then her to shut the book halfway through). It’s hard to explain how to be happy, and to look at Payton and see where she is at 2, but still have that empty feeling that something is missing. We all felt it, but I know he was looking down smiling at his little girl.
Dads funeral went extremely well, minus one thing. We got everyone ready, suits, dresses, mini dresses(for payton); and were all bundled up to go. We drove over to pick up my dads brothers, and were waiting in the parking lot for them to get to their cars. While sitting there, I hear Jess in the back seat say “Payton, are you okay”. Followed by my daughter projectile puking all over the back of the car. We’re not really sure what happened, other than she had about 45 olives the night before and probably played far too much. Either way, it was too bad, as Jess had to take her home and missed the services.
We had two services, one at the VA Military cemetery, and one at my parents church. The first service was purely a military burial, which consisted of a small group of friends and family. It was a beautiful service, consisting of 3 Navy personell and my dads paster. One of the serviceman played taps, while two others folded the flag and went through the service. After folding the flag, they knelt down and gave it to my mom. I know this is exactly how my dad wanted his service to go, and we couldn’t have asked for a better day. We took a lot of pictures at the cemetery, friends and family, family and family, and I didn’t really know what to do. Should I smile? I don’t feel like smiling, i’m standing in front of my dad(even if it’s just his ashes) and his flag. Either way, I tried my best to smile and make the best of it. It certainly wasn’t my favorite moment of the day, but I know i’ll appreciate having the pictures of all the people when I look back.
The church service was also fantastic. We had many friends and family who showed up, and many spoke about how my dad has influenced their life. I was particularly touched by a friend of mine who went through the same thing with his dad, but we were all in high school. I look back and wonder how he handled all this, the maturity it took to deal with helping his family pull through, and how its been a great example for me to follow. His friendship, and support through this has been truly amazing. Its friends like these that remind me what’s good in life, and that you don’t have to be related by blood to consider someone family.
The rest of our immediate family was able to come over the night before the funeral for a big BBQ. 4 of my dads brothers and sisters, my moms sister, brother and mom, along with a group of other close friends, were able to spend a lot of time laughing and sharing stories, and just catching up. It’s an old cliche, but it seems that we only get to hang out with each other at funerals and weddings, which is mostly true. Life happens, and its hard to see people as much as we’d like, especially when many live all across the US. If there is one thing I have learned from my dads sickness, is that you need to appreciate the time you have, not focus on the time you won’t have together. While this may be the last get together for some time, we all took advantage of the experience and had a great night.
I can’t thank everyone enough for coming to celebrate my dads life, share stories, laugh and cry together, and just remind me why I love being with family.
