Daddy

Thanks to everyone who said a prayer for Daddy today.  He successfully had a pacemaker put in this morning.  Please read Marsha's blog for all the details.  I actually enjoyed the time I got to spend with him today.  He stays so busy and we never get to talk to him for an extended amount of time.  Considering the fact that he was tied to his bed, I could actually talk to him and he had no choice but to talk back.  My dad has always been such a hard worker.  I don't know anyone else on this earth who works like he does.  He lives for it.  When we were in the waiting room today there was a volunteer who told us about her grandson.  She went on and on about how he was lazy and had graduated from high school but didn't go to college and slept all day.  He has never even gotten a driver's license.  I told her how when we were growing up the idea of college was never discussed as an option.  It was just an unspoken fact that we would attend college and we could not live at home.  I am so thankful my parents did that.  My dad was the "Because I said so" kind of dad.  When we woke up every summer morning, there was a bucket of freshly picked vegetables on the porch for us to snap or shell or shuck or whatever.  We didn't question whether we were going to do it or not.  When I was a senior in high school my curfew got moved to 11:30.  I didn't ask for any later and knew that I was lucky it wasn't 8:30 because "Nothing good ever happens after that."  When he let me go out with my friends he always made sure we had a quarter in case we needed to call home (this was before cell phones).  When the Galleria opened my family went to see it.  While walking in the mall he grabbed my hand and tried to skip through the mall with me.  I could have died.  He would drop me off at school and turn his country music up loud in the truck to embarrass me.  I made sure I got to school early so no one would see us.  On my senior spring break trip he took me and my best friend to the beach.  While we laid out on the beach he told boys that walked by and looked at us that we had terrible attitudes and not to talk to us.  I have so many stories about him and am so thankful for the memories.  Today I am glad that I had the time with him to remember who daddy really is.  He still likes to embarrass me, still works very hard and thankfully may now have a stronger heart so he can keep it up.