KING

Dear Dad;

I miss you so much. Maybe more every day. I miss your corny jokes, your little sayings, your dad-"ism's". You were my hero. Did you know that?

Do you remember when we used to go sledding down the hill of our first house? Maryland got some pretty fierce snow storms! Everyone blocked the street off and walked through the snow up to the top of the hill with their kids with just the streetlights burning in the middle of winter. It was so cold! My fingers were numb and my mouth was not forming words right, even as I begged for another ride with you down that long hill. We would get on the sled- you first, then me on top, holding on to you for dear life, and whoosh down with the snow flying in our faces, laughing and yelling at all our friends doing the same thing. We would come into the house, dripping from melting ice and snow, leaving puddles on the floor and a trail of wet boots and mittens and coats and scarves and snow pants and knitted hats, ready for cocoa and a piece of hot buttered toast. You were so young then, but I didn't realize it. And you had seen so much- a mean, sick father who disowned you, being a bomber pilot in World War Two, coming back and finishing your degree as a veteran (when most students were so much younger), being a test pilot, and getting married. When you were a kid, you and your brother would get into all kinds of trouble together. I have not forgotten the story about shooting out the window of a police car with your new BB gun. What were you thinking!

Remember all your adventures with the guys in the Air National Guard? The weekends flying a variety of planes on "missions" all over the country; the 2 weeks every summer serving your country- you were born to fly! Your first mission in WW2 was D-Day. What a way to start your tenure as a pilot in the Army Air Corps! You never talked much about the missions- I think the few times you did say something, it was difficult to think about- planes broken in half, falling out of the sky, people falling out of the planes as the planes went down. You mostly talked about how wonderful the English people were. They were kind and grateful and forgiving of 20-something year-olds with too much testosterone defending their country. Remember the flights to Cuba before the "crisis"? And dropping black opps guys into Panama? And picking up spies in the dead of night on Lake Como, in Italy, with only flashlights to guide your plane landing on water?

Remember the little plane we flew to Sea Island, Georgia for summer vacation? I think it was made of canvas and string and glued together with a little spit. You taught me how to navigate and read maps, looking at the topography. I was so honored to be in the co-pilot seat with you while Mum and Ted sat in the back with barf bags. That plane was really noisy! Then we took a day trip to Florida and crash-landed on a beach, ending up nose down with the propeller buried in the sand. Nothing got you in a flap- you just had the plane towed, replaced the propeller, and we were off the next day, back to Georgia. And then home to Maryland.

Your itchy feet- and excellent managerial skills got you a promotion and transfer to Australia, so our family was blessed to spend a few years there. We lived in the house we called "Winged Victory" because it looked like 2 wing sections from a distance. You embraced the Australian lifestyle and even learned how to ride a surf ski- no small skill in the heavy surf of Whale Beach. You guided me through learning to drive, letting me drive as far as school in the mornings, taking out trash bins and scrubby brush along the way, driving on the "other" side of the road in a stick shift car up and down steep hills and around dizzying curves along Barrenjoey Road through the Peninsula. And you didn't even look scared! Surfing safari's with the guys to Noosa and Byron Bay- camping on the beaches and cooking over a campfire, braving the brutal mosquitos and deadly spiders. But your greatest achievement was being a part of the build for the Sydney Opera House- your company did all the internal "systems" for it. As a result, we got to go on a personal guided tour of the Opera House shortly after it opened. That was a jaw-dropping experience! The use of wooden baffles to change the sound dynamics in a performance hall, the giant stage elevators moving an entire opera set down a level to be changed while another was lowered into its place. Amazing!

Next came the transfer back to the States. You even made an adventure of that! We spent nearly 6 weeks traveling the world to get "home". Each of us picked a place we wanted to go. We started at Uluru, formerly known as Ayer's Rock, and climbed it. My brother picked Mauritius for the surfing. You and Mum picked Nairobi and took us on a 10-day safari through Kenya and Tanzania, through the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, Amboseli Plain. We learned to invent games to occupy our nights because we were not permitted to leave our cabin after dark- lions roamed the camps. Then on to Cairo- the air was so hot, it felt like a blast furnace after being on Kenya. We rode camels and found out some of us were claustrophobic going down inside the pyramids. That was your pick. We boarded yet another plane and landed in Greece- my pick! Lots of walking and climbing to see the Acropolis and other ruins, a boat trip to several islands and then off to Italy, Mums choice. Milan, Florence, Rome and Venice (I had almost forgotten how stinky it was!). Then France, Austria, Switzerland and finally, England. Flying into the United States felt very different from the country we had left several years earlier. We visited our old neighborhood and family and friends. My brother and I were left in the care of my Aunt in Virginia while you and Mum went to find us an apartment in Dallas.

I think you loved Dallas because Texas was almost like another country. And your territory included Mexico, so BONUS travel for you! Six years in Dallas, and you were promoted to the international Vice President of Johnson Controls and took another transfer- this time to Belgium! That was a challenge you were able to sink your teeth into. You took a part of the company that was having issues and turned it around to being not only profitable, but you grew it as well! I don't mean to make you sound like a jet-setter. You were the farthest thing from that! You were a true adventurer. But you did enjoy crossing borders and bringing back a bottle of "hooch" whenever you did. By the time I got married and brought my husband to visit you in Brussels, you had quite a collection. Remember sitting in the kitchen with Bill and pouring shots of the weirdest liquors? I think you enjoyed watching the expressions on his face as he tasted them- his eyes wide and occasionally watering. Remember Christmas Eve in the Grand Place? We wandered into a cathedral that was at least 800 years old, the brass plate markers of nobles buried under our feet. It was so bloody cold! People were making brass rubbings of some of the brass floor plates. There were several areas with small quartets playing music, and a mass going on in the sanctuary. We even had snow! Remember the Christmas tree? It wouldn't fit in the lift going up to your apartment, so you and Bill and Ted hauled it up the outside of the building with a rope- but it kept getting stuck on the various balconies on the way. You cut off the offending branches until it finally reached the top. At that point it was mostly a long stick. You gents carried the branches up and re-attached them with tape and string. It was a sad tree but the decorations hid most of the "surgery" holding it together.

So, why did we call you the world's oldest 12 year-old? Because you could find the fun in anything! And you could make fun out of nothing! When my son was 7, you took him to crash a 4th of July party down the road, because they had really great fireworks. When you returned, you were carrying a large paper sack filled with the left-over fireworks. Remember taking all the fireworks apart and pouring the gunpowder from them into a cardboard tube so you could make a rocket? You guys taped it together and made a fuse, then lit it and waited. It fell over and fizzled. After a couple of minutes, my husband got up to see what was going on with the rocket. Just before he got to it, it exploded. Remember doing paper basketball when we were on the Amboseli Plain because we had to stay indoors? We actually got pretty good at shooting crushed paper "balls" into the trash bin across the room while hearing animal roars and loud vocal sounds outside.

I miss you so much. You were always my hero. Not only my hero, but my daughter's hero as well. She loved traveling with you to England to see the museum in honor of the American armed forces that protected the people there. She loved experiencing the Moulin Rouge in Paris- her first time seeing a topless show that you told her was "art". Seeing Venice and going to the island of Murano. She treasures the glass "egg" you brought back from there.

You have instilled in me a desire to do good for other people; to not be afraid to try new things or take a leap of faith; to not take everything so deadly seriously- especially myself- and to see the world through the eyes of a child. To see the world as a wonderous place filled with new adventures every day, new things to see, new places to explore. To stand up for what you believe and not be shy about it. To know you are going to make mistakes and be okay with it. Those are all things you showed by example. You have big shoes. HAD big shoes. The last year, you seemed to shrink and almost disappear. I missed your booming voice and big smile. And when you left, the world became a cacophony of noise that made no sense anymore. I just wanted to put my fingers in my ears and go "La la la la la..." to shut the sound out. I always dreaded the day I would lose you but I know you live on in me, in my daughter, my son and in the little granddaughters who only got a short glimpse of you. We look to find ways to do good, to make life fun and filled with adventure, and to take those leaps of faith that grow us as people as well as spiritually.

I love you, Dad.....