Thursday, December 10, 2020
I can't remember if it was my twelfth or thirteenth birthday, but Dad gave me the best birthday surprise ever that year.
Some time after he and Mom divorced, Dad moved to Winnipeg for a while, so contact between he and my brother and I was limited to phone calls and mail, this was long before Skype. He called me on my birthday and asked if I'd gotten my birthday gifts from him yet. I hadn't and told him so, so he told me to check the front door. And when I opened the door, there he was, a cell phone in one hand, a box with some gifts in the other, that huge grin on his face that anyone who knew him knows, and a big shout of "SURPRISE!!!"
He decided to move back home, he said he missed my brother and I, and in typical Bill fashion, decided to make it a surprise for us.
Dad loved surprises. He loved to laugh and to make people laugh. He could make friends with anyone. He loved anything to do with cooking, and was always thrilled to get any kind of cooking tool, the more exotic and confusing, the better. And he loved his family, with all his heart and all his soul.
That kind of love doesn't just disappear. There's way too much power in it to just vanish because a body shuts down. Dad is still with us, I believe that with all MY heart. And as long as we're still here to remember him, then he isn't going anywhere.
I love you Dad, and as sad as I am that I won't be able to hug you and play with you anymore, that I can't call you and talk to you, I'm relieved you aren't in any more pain. This isn't "Goodbye". It's "Until we meet again".
