alright.. it was bound to come up

i have a hard time looking at December pictures of my dad, let alone post them... but this is the only one i have of this memory... and it... like him.. is precious....

i was bound to write about it eventually... there have been tons of fun and memorable moments in my papa's long life in being my papa... but.. sometimes i have a hard time going back that far.. sometimes the pain of loosing him feels too fresh and it makes it difficult to reach back that far... so this is a more recent memory that was bound to be written about...

yes.. this is the story of the infamous singing contests!

no one knows how they started.. no one knows whose idea it was... or why we went along with it to begin with.. or how it became such a serious and competitive weekly event...

anyone who was there can, however, tell you how my dad's face lit up at the prospect of being able to judge all of us...

this is how the contests were structured... my dad would have a pad of paper and a pen (he insisted on being the only judge).. and we would take turns singing to him... so if you happened to be at our house on a random week night... you got pulled in.. you had to sing (or cry your way out of it KATY!).... we started with hymns... i did my best Patsy Cline with Just a Closer Walk With Thee, and on another night did a very girly Bill Monroe with Angel Band....a couple nights we were given a choice of songs... i of course did my best Janis Joplin with Bobby McGee... then there was the last contest.. it was a Christmas special and i did I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas...i am proud to say that i stayed steadily in second place except for the last one... but that one was fixed (my mom had never even placed in a contest and for the Christmas special she was told she would win, unbeknown to us, and she did. Call it a Christmas gift from him...either was it was fixed and i was robbed!)... but we had so much fun and he took his duties seriously... he wrote notes about us as we sang and we were critiqued at the end and given our place (1st 2nd or 3rd)...toward the end of my papa's life he struggled to talk... at the last contest, knowing there was no way in the world he would get Eric (the hubby) to sing, he recruited him as announcer and prize giver...

in having these contests he gave us the most fun memories of him, of being with each other... sometimes i wonder if he knew what he was doing...

i was thinking about this a lot today.. i tend to sing in my car (quite loudly, complete with upper body choreography)... and.. as it happens sometimes when people pass... i forgot he was gone.. i was singing a song and thinking.. hey.. i did really good with that song.. i should sing that at the next contest... when this happens you are immediately hit with a load of bricks... with the realization that this is not going to happen.. he is gone...

i miss my dad so much.. there is a pain at the back of my heart when i think of him... i hurt for me.. not for him.. i know he is a place where he is whole an d happy... but i will always selfishly miss him... but i continue to be so thankful with the legacy that he left us with... and memories to remember and laugh.. instead of cry... but what i wouldn't give to sing one more time for him...