What does 80 look like?

Today would have been Dad’s 80th birthday. I can’t quite imagine what he might have been like if he had lived to what feels like a milestone age. What does 80 look like?  I watch people who might be that age, wondering if he would have had trouble getting in and out of cars, would have walked slower, been less active, maybe climbed fewer flights of stairs.  I don’t think so.

We feel like we were robbed of something important when Dad was killed by that tired trucker; the chance to see him “grow up.”   We’re left to imagine what he might have turned out to be.  We know for sure he wasn’t done evolving, he was always learning new things, reading, going to classes, researching on the internet.  We all wish we had been able to watch him grow, and we wish that when he finally did need us, that we could have been there to lend a hand.  Like he always lent his hands to people that needed him.  It would have only been fair to  pay him back for all the years he supported us.

Turns out the world isn’t always fair.

Happy Birthday Daddy.  Hope you’re fixing things, as only you could do, up there in heaven.  Mostly likely you’re working on a handrail  right now, or unsticking a door, making things safer for someone else.  We’ll see you when we get there.