Happy birthdeathsary Dad..

October has been a month dedicated strictly to my dad.  It is the month of his birth as well the month of his death.  Every day on Facebook I have posted a picture of and a story relating to my dad that I think coincides to the story.  As stated in my last post, he was an amazing man and the most amazing man I have encountered in my life.

Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad, and that’s why I call you dad, because you are so special to me. You taught me the game and you taught me how to play it right.   ~~~Wade Boggs

October 1 – Dad, Mom, and the grandmas – 

It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was. ~~~Anne Sexton

October 2  &  3  – Dad and me about 2010 -and the  darn  family!! 

My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~~~Clarence Budington Kelland

Oct 4 – Dad and some sisters at L&E.. I know it’s the Sportsman cafe but will always belong to L & E to my heart.

My father was my teacher. But most importantly he was a great dad. ~~~Beau Bridges

October 5 – Dad’s younger days.  Reminding  me  and  teaching  me…  my  worth  ..  my  value..  day  by  day  

My father said there were two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers. The takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better. ~~~Marlo Thomas

October 6 – One of my very favorite photos. Mom and dad looking so young, Patricia and Veronica not looking any different these days, and me looking slightly crazed. This photo immortalized into a deck of cards after dad’s passing by Dori (Thank you so much)! Nothing but hearts and smiles in my heart right now and every time I look at this.

My father always used to say that when you die, if you’ve got five real friends, then you’ve had a great life. ~~~Lee Iacocca

October 7 – An oldie but a goodie. Mom and dad. Both gave me humor.  Both gave me inspiration and ability. Both game me drive and determination.  But only one.. only one.. gave me 100% unconditional love.  Every time.. all the time…

A father’s tears and fears are unseen, his love is unexpressed, but his care and protection remain as a pillar of strength throughout our lives. ~~~Ama H. Vanniarachchy

October 8 – This one is for missing yesterday.. so weird to think that I am older now than my mom or dad was in this picture.. an obvious thing but so weird how you can outlive a memory that feels like it was only yesterday.

Dad is and always will be my living, breathing superhero. ~~~ Bindi Irwin

October 9 –

Dad and his truck… probably some of my favorite one-on-one times! Just me and him driving down 90 or 94.. he’d let me call out to other truckers.. breaker breaker this is 2 can sam (cb name that started as a tease from my sisters becoming coolest name ever).. chats about everything from books to jokes.. oh the stories he could tell.. (I once met a man on the road with such greasy hair.. flies would just slide right off) one day after I had been talking nonstop.. dad pointed out the window and said..”you see that mountain Sami? It’s probably about 50 miles away now. What do you see?” I spent the next 50 miles looking quietly.. then making a guess.. I never saw what he was looking at..before he passed.. talking through memories of road trips, I remembered that.. I asked him about it.. he remembered it too.. I asked him what he had been looking at.. his eyes teared up.. so did mine.. but instead of crying he started laughing.. I was like… what?!? He could barely speak he was laughing so hard .. and between gasps.. he finally got it out…

NOTHING he saw nothing.. he was just trying to get me to shut up!!! Hahahaha!! 40+ years thinking about what was on the mountain.. that man.. he knew how to keep a long joke going.. we laughed so hard.. yeah! Dad, love ya… still laughing..

October 10 –

My good people as you pass by

as you are now so once was I.

As I am now you soon will be ,

prepare yourself to follow me.

It was my father who taught me to value myself. ~~~ Dawn French

October 11 –

Dad … CHOSE … me.

When I was about 26 years old, I found out that dad was not my biological dad. I was the only one who didn’t know, and the only one who didn’t freak out. I was amazed by it. Not broken by it. Apparently he made it clear to everyone he didn’t want me to know he wasn’t my biological dad because he didn’t want me to ever feel like I didn’t fit in. I believe it was truly the only secret my family was ever able to keep. I spent my life knowing that I was loved by my dad. But up until that very moment, I had never really known that me, being loved by dad, was not just a biological inevitability, but a deliberate and hard thought out choice that he made. The fact I never knew and would never have known … well, that says way more than words ever could.

My Father had a profound influence on me. He was a lunatic. ~~~Spike Milligan

October 12-

This is just one more example of why dad was special. Never one to skip a laugh. Never one to not join in with our own jokes. Miss your humor dad.

My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States. ~~~Harry S Truman

October 13 –

I guess you could say these two have always been my favorite men. The only two who made me feel comfortable enough to be silent. I’m not saying silence happened often. I’m just saying that their calmness created calm inside of me.

No matter what was going on, they were unflappable. .. dad and grandpa…grandpa and dad. They both had an amazing sense of humor. Grandpa was a little quieter than dad and that’s saying a lot because dad was pretty darn quiet at times. While dad always had a book with him grandpa always had some kind of activity going on. You can’t blame dad because he was surrounded by very talkative women.

So many stories about each of them. I remember having my first car and letting one of my friends drive I decided to go visit my grandpa. I told my friend to take a right a little bit too late and she ran into his fence knocking down the entire gateway. When we pulled to a stop we tried switching places so he would think I did it and by the time we switched seats and looked up, he was standing directly in front of us. Had seen the whole thing. Didn’t say a word. He put his rake against the wall, grabbed his hammer and some nails and went to repair the fence. Grandpa and dad never once brought this incident up in any negative way.

My friend and I still talk about this. Grandpa and dad actually laughed about this until the very end. Completely unflappable. Miss you both!

My father told me ‘Name your price in the beginning. If it ever gets more expensive than the price you name, get out of there.’ ~~~Dave Chappelle

October 14 – 

Getting close to dads birthday now and thought I would go way,way, way back with him. High school senior picture I think. Has always been a reminder to me that when I see some old geezer walking down the street all cranky and full of piss and vinegar.. they were young once too. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed and ready to conquer the world.

Fast forward about 36 years. Mom and dad helping me put a new roof on my house. End of day. Dad and I go to that old bar in Hillyard that is at the top of green street down from Amicarrellas (sp?) sitting in there having a beer and and he says to me, “See that kid walking in? How old do you think he is?” I replied at least 21, we are in a bar dad. He was like.. no, no I know.. but how old do you think he is?

Now not many know this about dad but he was a thinker. Always had been. So when he asked a second time, well I knew he was about to make a point. So I guessed 23-24. He said, “Exactly! And every day I get up.. that’s how old I feel like I am. And as I get out of bed with bones creaking and pass a mirror.. I always ask my reflection.. who the FK is this ol’ bstrd looking back at me. Life goes by so quickly Sami-don’t forget that.”

I never have! Love you dad.

Everything my mother and father did was designed to put me where I am. ~~~Henry Louis Gates

October 15

Man you gotta love the 80s. This is basically proof that I wasn’t just a daddy’s girl.. heck I was a daddy’s teen.. followed by a daddy’s woman .. eventually I was a daddy’s Grammy Sami…

Being a daddy’s girl is like having permanent armor for the rest of your life.” ~~~Marinela Reka

October 16

Sometimes you forget that your parents also have parents… have lost parents.. as much as I was a daddy’s girl.. dad was a momma’s boy. Not in today’s interpretation of the word.. but he was just a kid who, through his life, LOVED his momma. My grandma. He also frequently tried to emulate his daddy. But his mom.. that’s where his heart was.

A father needs to be the standard against which she will judge all men. ~~~Gregory E.

October 17

When I think of this group, I think of happy gatherings. Holidays. Anniversaries. Birthdays. Only 2 remain. That doesn’t make me sad. Sometimes wistful. But not sad. There is only one way out of this messy, chaotic life. I try my best to celebrate that fact. Each and every day. I am not always successful at that. Sometimes I am a complete and utter failure at it. When that happens, and it has and it will happen again, I try not to beat myself up too hard. Before my mom passed..and during dad’s fight with cancer, I asked them both the same question and they both answered in relatively the exact same way. I try to always remind myself of their answer and pull myself up and once again carry on.

Me: Do you have any regrets?

Mom: Yeah. But what can you do about the past? All I can do is try to keep being me. A better me.

Dad: Of course. You can’t get through life successfully without em.. just gotta keep trucking.. hope for the best

So I just keep truckin..forgiving myself..trying to be a better me.. accepting of others more.. because none of us make it out of here alive and we are all just doing the best we can.

Fathers and daughters have a special bond. She is always daddy’s little girl. ~~~Richard L. Ratliff

October 18

This is by far my favorite picture of dad.  My daughters and dad just cutting a rug. When my sisters and I grew up, I think mom and dad had had enough of the kids, any kids, in their house.  So to be honest, we never spent much time with them.  They weren’t the huggy, lovey, kissy grandparents.  They didn’t beg for more time with the kids.  It always made me a little bit sad.  But I knew that they loved each other. I just don’t think they had enough time together.  Love is such an easy thing to forget.  Or just miss.

This picture is always a reminder to me that, if given the chance, and you let your guard down, there is always a chance for smiles and laughter.  I wish my daughters could have spent more good times with dad.  Times like this.  They loved him and he loved them. I am not sure that any of them REALLY knew it.    It’s just another reminder of how short time is. Let people know that you REALLY love them.

An hour with your grandchildren can make you feel young again. Anything longer than that, and you start to age quickly. — Gene Perret

A good father will leave his imprint on his daughter for the rest of her life. ~~~ Dr. James Dobson

October 19

When I think of this group, I think of happy gatherings. Holidays. Anniversaries. Birthdays. Only 2 remain. That doesn’t make me sad. Sometimes wistful. But not sad. There is only one way out of this messy, chaotic life. I try my best to celebrate that fact. Each and every day. I am not always successful at that. Sometimes I am a complete and utter failure at it. When that happens, and it has and it will happen again, I try not to beat myself up too hard. Before my mom passed..and during dad’s fight with cancer, I asked them both the same question and they both answered in relatively the exact same way. I try to always remind myself of their answer and pull myself up and once again carry on.

Me: Do you have any regrets?

Mom: Yeah. But what can you do about the past? All I can do is try to keep being me. A better me.

Dad: Of course. You can’t get through life successfully without em.. just gotta keep trucking.. hope for the best

So I just keep truckin..forgiving myself..trying to be a better me.. accepting of others more.. because none of us make it out of here alive and we are all just doing the best we can.

October 20

This is likely one of my most common memories of dad. It’s just dad coming home. Happened all the time. It was a super common event. So why take a picture? Well, dad was a trucker. He was gone a lot. This could have been a normal day or a special event. But it doesn’t matter. Pretty much every time he came home it was special. I’d love to see him walk in a door again. Any door.

A father’s job is not to teach his daughter how to be a lady. It’s to teach her how a lady should be treated. ~~~ Unknown

October 21

Dad’s birthday is tomorrow. As I was scrolling through my photos I came across the mile 13 photo. This set photo is huge. It started as a trip dad wanted to take to visit mom’s resting place in Montana. Was supposed to be dad, me, and my sisters but turned into.. a 15 passenger van with pretty much the whole family… down to the grandkids! At first I think dad was annoyed.. but it’s one of the things he talked about during one of our last conversations. One of the most chaotic but best memories he had. He had planned this to be his last resting place. You had to drive through some beautiful country to get there… find mile marker 13, climb through someone’s fence, climb s bill…dad, my sis, and Mike drove there to scout it out.. apparently after som 60 years.. it was gone. It was a new development.. as dad put it to me.. ”Well, I was very disappointed. Yet surprised it had been left for so long. I can still feel the drop in my stomach. But what do ya do?” That led to us looking over the pictures of the trip.. when he got in the van to go visit mom.. his only thought had been…”WTF have I just got myself into!” I asked him how many times in his life had that thought popped into his head raising us. He looked at me and without a blink said, “Every FKN day!” Then laughed.. and said, “But like that trip, at the end of it, I have had more happy times than frustrated times and I don’t regret a thing.”

October 22 – Happy Birthday Dad.

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I love my daddy. My daddy’s everything. I hope I can find a man that will treat me as good as my dad.” ~~~Lady Gaga

My dear father; my dear friend; the best and wisest man I ever knew, who taught me many lessons and showed me many things as we went together along the country by-ways. ~~~ Sarah Orne Jewett

Daddy, thanks for being my hero, chauffeur, financial support, listener, life mentor, friend, guardian and simply being there every time I need a hug.  ~~~Agatha Stephanie Lin

Pictures- words- poems – :   Dad Quote; Bittersweet memories; My Dad Was Right; Places in our Memories; Good Memories; Memories; Memories in Photographs;  Scent of a memory; Spicy Memories; Dear Mum and Dad; Swiss Sunday – Lasting Memories; In Memory;  Friday Fictioneers: Seeing Dad; Memories; A Special Man And His Memories; Wayward Memory; Infinite Dad; Places in our Memories; A walk down the memory lane; Goodbye, Dad

Wabi-Sabi

Wabi-Sabi (noun) Origin: Japanese | The discovery of beauty within the imperfections of life and art.

This yet another Japanese aesthetic that has a very deep meaning in which life and art are viewed as beautiful not because they are perfect and eternal but because they are imperfect and fleeting.

We experience happiness as a series of pleasing moments. They come and go like clouds, unpredictable, fleeting, and without responsibility to our desires. Through honest self-work, reflection, and meditation, we begin to string more of these moments together, creating a web-like design of happiness that drapes around our lives. Tara Stiles

Every time I go home I find that everything has changed.  I mean some of the things are the same, but for the most part, it is all different.  Like in my brain that one laugh, that one smile, that one experience remains, but all of the emotions have changed.  It’s like starting over each time. Sometimes that makes me happy and sometimes that makes me sad. I try to hold on to the happy and ignore the sad.  However, it’s possible that the sadness and the anger and the misunderstandings help you to realize how fleeting the happy times are and how you should be holding on to them even tighter. These happy times are exactly the wabi-sabi that makes it all so beautiful.  That in the end, makes it all so very beautiful.

I get those fleeting, beautiful moments of inner peace and stillness – and then the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day, I’m a human trying to make it through in this world. Ellen DeGeneres

fleeting: Albatz; Tina; philos; ana; yamoto; xan;  barbara; swati; penross; barbara; chris; mugdha

Annu Miarabilis

Happy New Year!!!

Annu Miarabilis (n.) (phr.) – Origin: Latin – Definition: A remarkable or notable year in history; a year of wonders and miracles, used to speak hopefully of the future.

The year 2020 has brought us so much negativity and bad news. The world news corps sharing their 24/7 pandemic of fear. COVID-19, an actual pandemic, has caused millions of people to lose their lives or at minimum, their way of life.  Fire, politics, racism, riots, masks, online education, all followed by memes to mock it all.

Based on the above negative aspects of last year, I have decided on a new personal writing/photo challenge for 2021. Words – happy words, weird words, words relating to travel, words that sound funny, words that represent my identity, words that I have never heard of before, words that might very well be made up.

So here is a toast to 2021 with the hope that it will take off in leaps and bounds, turning into an annus mirabilis.  With love and memories to all past travels, smiles, hugs, and kisses and hoping all of these things can resume!!!!

Egypt

Egypt

Paul; sadje; charlotte; vincent; Phil; Sandra; Pooja; Debbie; Trang;  Wanderlustig;  Eugenia

Day 28 ~ Doppelgänger

“When I was a kid I worried that when I woke up, I’d find my family having breakfast with my doppelgänger. We would fight to the death, and then my family would peacefully finish breakfast.”
― Fran Krause

There are so many times in my life that others have said to me, “Hey, I just saw you over there!! How did you get here so quickly?”  I would always say things like..”Uh, obviously, that was not me!!”

This happened to me when I was in the Navy, pregnant with my first child.  Every single day someone would come up to me and say they saw me somewhere else.  I just put it off to being in uniform and everyone sort of looking like everyone else.

One day, a friend came up to me and said, “Hey, I apologize if my sister and her friends are making you uncomfortable by staring at you.”  I honestly had not realized I was being stared at.  She continues, “It’s just because they cannot get over how much you look like their professor.” I think to myself, “Oh here we go again.”  So she brought me over to where her sister and her friends were and they pulled up a photo on their phone of their professor.  My first reaction was, “Where did I take that picture and why do they have it on their phone?”  They all started laughing and I was thinking, “What a weird joke.”  Only when they pulled up the second picture did I realize that this was not me.

Now, I realize that you do not know me well enough to know if this looks like me or not.  But seriously, even I thought it was me.  At a glance, it was me.  If you look very close, you can see differences but only if you look very close.  I actually even pose like that at time.  Hand in pocket, randomly pretending to be a part of my background.  It was a bit creepy, but fascinating as well.  It made me wonder if the earlier look-a-likes, were the same person as the one above.

The second picture they showed me, obviously was not me, but I could see in it an older version of me.  I’d like to think a much older version of me.  My aunt or my older sister.  It doesn’t matter, I still see me.

Remember, as I have stated in other posts, I found out when I was about 26 that my father I grew up with was not my biological father.  So now I wonder…Could this be an aunt, and older sister, some distant relative?  I tried to reach out to this person, but never heard back.  Which made me even more convinced.  Most of my family either does not respond to me at all or it takes them some time to respond.  So yeah, it totally could be a relative. I still sort of wish she had responded and she was.  Maybe, it is me?  Maybe it’s an older version of me on a different time line.  I love a good science fiction story.  Have you ever watched the German flick “Dark”?  You should.  It’s a very complicated story line and you have to pay attention, but it’s worth a watch.  The fanciful portion of my being loves the concept.  Although the sensical brain in Sami denies the possibility.

“Almost Myself
On a twilight road, I met a young man with my face.
A denizen of some distant dust devil in drifter denim.
We stood and eyed each other, then, with a look of mutual disdain, we parted.
Our backward glances were not narcissistic flirtation, but self-conscious reflection and surrender to the formality of the familiar.
Against a backdrop of veined lightning and coyote song, I was alone again.”
― Stewart Stafford

Now I am slightly interested in finding faces that look like mine.  Or faces that look like other members of my family.  I saw a comic of a lady once that in spirit and in looks reminded me of my mom.  I posted it on Facebook and many of my friends laughed because they thought I was presenting a future image of myself.  In retrospect, maybe I was.

Many people say, “Who’s my doppelganger?” when maybe / they should ask, “Whose doppelganger am I?”

Carson Cistulli

I used to hate being compared to my mom.  But as I grow older, I can see the resemblance more and more.  If not entirely the attitude, definitely in looks.  It’s funny how as we age, we can sometimes become the image we thought we would never be.  It’s not all bad.  My mom was a strong, versatile, and very talented lady.  She was a cowgirl, irreverent, spontaneous, and funny at times.  She had a way about her that you either hated or really loved.  Often both at the same time.

I am ashamed at times when I think about her, because I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about her. However, when I do think about her, I focus only on her positives, because, well, I am her doppelgänger.  We are more alike than different.  I am her image.  I am sometimes her, or at least so it seems.  I try my best to be the best parts of her.  I’m guessing she is probably looking down on me, slightly disappointed in my efforts.  This thought sort of makes me laugh.  Largely because it is likely true.  Thankfully, that only makes me work harder at it.

RIP mom.

“On a winter night I hear the Easter bell:
I knock on graves and quicken the dead,
Until at last in a grave I see — myself.

(Winter Sonnets: XI)”
― Vyacheslav Ivanov

“That man, especially when he slept, when his features were motionless, showed me my own face, my mask, the flawlessly pure image of my corpse […] in a state of perfect repose, this resemblance was strikingly evident, and what is death, if not a face at peace – its artistic perfection? Life only marred my double; thus a breeze dims the bliss of Narcissus; thus, in the painter’s absence, there comes his pupil and by the superfluous flush of unbidden tints disfigures the portrait painted by the master.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

laura; method; debbie; sync; bonkers; shame; clare; sparks; random; sacha; hudley; scribble; logic

Day 3 – Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

I took the perfect photo with my Iphone about 8 years ago.  I started to write a post on it, but literally lost my motivation.. or got carried away with other motivations.  I’m settling back down and trying to finish up old tasks or personal challenges I left behind. 

For awhile I loved taking photos of everything.  I found it a bit exhilarating.  I did it for myself and no one else. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that i only did it for myself and got caught up in only doing things for other’s enjoyment.

I am back and now trying to work on finding that intrinsic happiness of doing things because i enjoy them.  Not for anyone else, but for my personal self satisfaction and interest. So here it is and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Only one question:  Thirsty?

“No matter how valuable you are and your ideas, fools will certainly play both of you down, so exclude yourselves from the inflammatory environs of fools.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

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