Credits:
"Life is Feeling Grateful" Collab: butterfly, background paper
"My Hero" Little Butterfly Wings: word art
"M3 June 18 Add on" Little Butterfly Wings: stitches
"M3 Sept 19 Add on" Little Butterfly Wings: doodle
Journaling 525 words
My Dad was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1937. He lived there until he was in his teens, and then moved to California, where he lived the rest of his life, met the love of his life, had three children, started a delivery service for interior designers that he ran until the day he died. What drove his passion more than anything else after us was music. When they were first married, my Mom bought him a $25 guitar and he taught himself to play. He and his friend Ted made a band "The Flat Tops" and played all over the LA/Orange County area playing back up to some of the greats of country: Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Buck Owens, Johnny Mathis, and many others. There came a time when babies came that my Mom told him he had to choose: a career in the clubs or be a husband and Father. He put down his guitar until the 70's, when he started a guitar Mass at our church. From there he started playing again, and the light of music shined in his eyes again. He started another band where they played church festivals and private parties. I was blessed to be the token Girl Singer and got to sing the standards like Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and many others. It was such a blessing to play with my Dad and be a "peer' with him. We were able to have many times driving to gigs where we talked about life and just enjoyed each other as people. After I met Michael, all three of us had some of the most wonderful times. My dad was soo excited when Michael joined the band because he played drums! Up until then we had "Mo-Chine", a drummer machine. Such fun times! One of the sad thing about my father, however, was that he never knew how much people loved him. He had a very low self esteem and he felt that "MUSIC" was all that he was. He struggled with this all his life, and mostly it showed in weight gain and over eating. No one could reach him that he was so loved! When he died, all I could think of, through my tears, that now I hoped that he could see how much he was loved and respected by so many people. His funeral was packed, and they had to cut off the talks because the memorial went two hours over our time. So many people showed up that we ran out of food at the reception afterwards, and people even followed us to the burial. My Dad - the guitar man - but more than anything else, he was so tender, so loving, so funny, and gave me a true feeling of love and protection. The way he loved me showed me just what I wanted to find in a husband. I am so glad that my Dad met and loved my husband as well, and gave his approval for our marriage.You have been gone from us 10 years today, and I still miss your gentle presence in my life. I will always love you.
