Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Fall memories

Our first cold snap is here and it has been nice wearing warm clothes and not sweating all the time. The change in the weather means drinking more hot chocolate and hot teas and coffee. It bring back memories of my childhood spent in our too small farm house that lacked proper insulation. Just let me tell you if it was 30 degrees outside, it felt even colder inside. We had small gas heaters in each room and a fireplace in the living room to help keep us warm. My dad always kept a roaring fire buring. It would be so warm in there sometimes that we would have to open the front door to keep the heat from suffocating us. Everytime I smell a woodburning fireplace I am instantly transformed to those roaring fires from my childhood.

My dad had his many shortcomings as a father and husband, but he played with us and let us do many things to him that other people would not let us do. He would play doctor with us and let us put medical tape on his hairy chest and rip it off. I am sure that it did not feel good, but he did it anyway. He would let us put mom's pink sponge curlers in his hair and leave them there. He would let us paint his toe nails! He would pretend to eat our play doh food that we so lovingly prepared for him. He would let us dip our toast into his coffee and never complain of the crumbs that it left behind. I just hate that I was so young when he died that those few precious memories get a little more faded every year.

3 comments:

Cricky said...

dads are brilliant, wonderful, funny, charming, and very much so not perfect.

i can not imagine life without my daddy as a child or adult, I am sorry for your loss, but its good that you can look back at fond memories.

Blondie said...

What sweet, wonderful memories! Isn't it amazing the little snapshots we can keep trapped in our minds forever? Good stuff.

Anonymous said...

I can't even imagine loosing a parent to such a young age and to such a horrible disease.

I pray you'll never loose those memories.