mornings with my dad

I think early mornings will forever remind me of my dad. Growing up, him and I were kind of the only early birds who lived under the roof. And some of those quiet mornings spent with my dad are some of my favorites. When I was just a little girl and he'd tuck me in at night, I would remind him a million times to make sure and wake me up before he left for work. All my reminders must have worked because he always came in, scooped me up from my bed, and carried me into the living room where he would then carefully set me down on the couch. Then he would get me some breakfast, we would chat, and he'd make sure to always turn the television on to the 7 am Scooby Doo episode before he left for work.

In my teen years, the whole carrying me from my bed thing kind of stopped. But many a Sunday morning I would wake up, wander through the silence of the house and into the living room where I always found my dad wide awake. He was usually eating a bowl of cereal and watching the top 20 morning countdown on MTV (yeah, my dad is totally cool). So I would pour myself a bowl of my own cereal and join him. I feel a little selfish, but I loved those mornings because I had my dad all to myself for a while. I had his full attention and he mine before everyone else got out of bed and the house grew alive with noise and rowdiness again.

To Kenny Chesney's look-alike, to the man who taught me that ordering a steak that's not still red is a sin, to the man who taught me how to shoot a basketball, to the man who makes all the widows in town blush when he kisses them on the cheek, to the man who is always out to scrape the neighbors' driveways on the morning after the first snow storm, to the man who loves my mother, to the man who would give the shirt off his back to a stranger, to the hardest worker I know, to my father. . . .


I love you.

Happy Father's Day.

And I just want to say I appreciate all the men in my life who are father-like. My grandpas, father-in-law, uncles, brother, husband.
You are all great.