Forever Pa's Girl

On March 21, 2016 at 2:05 am part of my heart left me.  It was the first time I have ever felt part of my heart leave, as it left to go with Pa to heaven.  I had spent countless hours at the hospital with him the week leading up to this, and I wished I had more hours there.  I would tell him I love him, hold his hand, and talk about special memories.  Those are not only memories, but also moments that I will forever take with me through life.

Left me share a couple of the memories that still bring a smile to my face:

- When I was little we had gone out to eat and I wanted ice cream.  The waitress asked if anyone wanted anything else, and no one said anything.  She came back with the check, and I looked at Pa and said "I wanted ice cream" to which he responded "then you need to learn to speak up".  We will not discuss how many times I feel he regretted telling me to speak up, but I believe he is a huge part of why I speak up now.  Yes, you can thank him for that.

- When I got married I knew I wanted him to give me away.  Before I walked down the steps the song Waiting on a Woman played, and I then walked down the steps to be greeted by Pa standing at the bottom.  He gave me away, and presented my wedding band.  The next day as Steve was waiting on me to get ready, Pa walked up and said "already waiting on her" smiled and walked off.

- Emma was also a Pa's girl.  We told him that we were expecting on his birthday, and he was the most fun when we were getting people to guess her name.  We gave them clues and they were to try to guess her name.  At one point he asked if we were naming her M&M, so after that we would take him different M&M things.  We have a picture of his face as we handed him an M&M Easter egg.  Emma would just sit with him and be with him, and before we left they would always booie head.

As you can see he may have been a man of few words, but goodness the power of that man.  I still find myself feeling like I am in a nightmare that I can't wake up from, but I am doing everything I can to keep his memory alive for Emma.  We have pictures of him, I am making her a book of pictures of him, we have flowers in her room from the funeral, I am drying flowers, and we have his aftershave on one of his handkerchiefs for her to smell.

I am so proud to be Pa's girl, and for Emma to be Papa's girl.  We will see him again, but until then he is watching us!