When I think of amazing men, amazing Americans, I think of my dad. When the Great Depression hit, he was old enough to understand things were bad, and if not, he definitely knew by the time it ended a decade later. Imaging going from a depression economy to a nation at war, which is exactly what happened. Dad had to wait until he turned eighteen in1945 to enlist, but when he did, they sent him to Germany and placed him behind a tail gun in a B-17 because he was an expert marksman. His family sent five brothers to fight in WWII...they all survived.
When he returned, the man who never graduated from high school earned a four-year engineering degree in three years, an incredible feat even then. He married my mother and after years of trying for children of their own, they adopted other's children, and they did it three times. He worked as an engineer for several companies finally ending up as a civilian worker at Hill Air Force Base. My parents bought six acres of land on the mountain in Farmington, Utah, where he designed and began building his dream home.
He never saw its completion.
The law of averages says reaching your one-hundredth birthday is rare. My father was months shy of reaching half that. He passed away at forty-nine, leaving a wife and three children under eleven-years old.
One hundred years is a milestone. Buildings have celebrations when they reach that mark (at least they do in the Western United States because that is considered old...). When people turn one-hundred local news do stories on them and families gather to celebrate.
For my father, this blog post may be the only thing written about him, the only mention the world will know of his birth and a little about his short, but important life. It's a shame, in a way, that we're not holding celebrations, no gatherings, no parties. Of my father's eleven siblings, only one remains, and of my immediate family, only my brother and I are left to remember the man we barely knew.
From what I know about my father, I doubt he'd be upset that this may be the only acknowledge of his birthday. It's not when a person is born that's important, it's what you do with the time you have, and my father...well, he's my Gold Standard on how to live a truly special life.
Happy birthday, Dad. I cannot thank you enough for everything you've done for me. Love you and miss you still.
