How can it be 5 years? Somedays it seems like yesterday, other days is seems like years, that my dad lost his battle with cancer (Multiple Myeloma to be exact).  As one of the last things he said “Cancers a bitch” and it’s true. Those of us who have lost loved ones knows what I am talking about. It sucks to watch someone you love fight. It makes me mad somedays, it makes me sad more often. I miss him daily.

Today, 5 years later, I thought I should focus on the good, which was pretty much all my life, minus the last year with my dad here. My parents had a wonderful loving relationship and I feel honored to have been raised in this environment. We, my brother and I, were spoiled in a sense, by experiencing their relationship as their kids.

My dad was the one who always, I mean always, had at least one joke to tell, usually one that offended at least one class of people. I can still hear his laugh, the kind of delayed laugh, ha ha…..ha ha….ha

He was one who treated friends like family. “The first time you are at my home, you are a guest, after that you are family.”  But if you crossed him or his family, forget it- your out.

Now that I have a kiddo, I remember many childhood moments, watching the Muppet show, playing soccer, camping, working on the house. You name we did it. When the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” came out, we watched it together. One day, we were driving somewhere and at a stop sign he jumped out of the car and did the “excellent” guitar movement from the movie. My brother and I almost died of embarrassment.  Today I think about that and giggle…waiting for the moment when I can embarrass our kiddo.

It’s odd writing this, it’s hard. What to share, what I can write about without crying to much. It’s taken me a few days to get this far, there is so much I want to share and so much I want to just keep in my heart and mind. Oh I know….

When my brother and I were older (probably 13 & 10-ish??) my mom said she was done cooking dinner every night (I totally get this now!) and so it was dad’s turn on weekends. At first we wouldn’t eat until midnight, he making one thing at a time, not a multi-tasker at all.  Slowly dinner got earlier and earlier, we celebrated when we ate at 9pm! There was one green bean and cayenne pepper incident.  I have know since them that cayenne pepper doesn’t smell, so that means not to add extra because it might be old… holly cow those green beans burned!  Really really burned.

As I got older, hanging became even more fun. Hubby and I would drop by on a Saturday evening, have a few cocktails with my parents, make dinner and just chill. Good times.

All this being said, I, we my family and everyone my dad befriended, are the lucky ones. We had “big Murph” in our lives. It was too short, but we are lucky to have had him for the time we did.