Dad's Picture In My Picture

As a follow up to yesterday I want to tell you the story of how I came to find the picture that was the inspiration for the post.

While looking through my collection of snapshots in search of a couple of pictures taken at Dorney Park back in the 70’s (the subject of a future post) I came across a shot of some things that belonged to my dad.

I had taken the picture back 2004 just after I brought things such as Dad’s coin holder, one of his old Bibles, a copy of a hand written invitation to my parent’s wedding, a Royal Rangers’ patch, and more that belonged to him back to Kentucky with me.

In May of that year I had flown north to help my family empty my mom’s house so it could be sold. Although he hadn’t lived in the house since 1999 my mom had kept a lot of my father’s things. This gave all of us a chance to pick and choose which of those things we wanted to preserve my dad’s memory.

I chose about 2 dozen things. In addition to those I’ve already mentioned was a one of his watches, a pair of glasses, and a personally autographed cartoon caricature of Ron Barry, a local radio personality from the 1970s.

But back to the story behind the rediscovery of the picture from yesterday’s post. Again I found the picture of the group of memorabilia in a box of snapshots. In that composite shot was the picture of Teressa and me on Christmas day 1991.

When I decided to write yesterday’s post, instead of looking for it in the box where I store all my pictures I looked in the container that holds the plastic bag full of my dad’s stuff.

That means it was part of my dad’s most prized possessions. The picture was special to him. It showed how much he missed Teressa, that he treasured spending Christmas with his family and that Christmas 1991 was especially memorable for him. The reason I mention this is that today would have been my father’s 75^th birthday.

The fact that a picture that was special to him inspired me to write one of the most emotional blog posts of the year helps me to feel a bit closer to him on what would have been a milestone occasion for him.

I still love and miss both my parents and my niece very much. I can’t wait until the day when God’s trumpet sounds and we are all together again as we “dwell in the house of The Lord forever”.  What a family reunion that will be.