I got another camera speeding ticket from Crapids.  This one was taken the weekend I went back to scan photos and write thank you notes at my dad's house.  The other two were gotten when he was still alive.  The first in the winter when he was still at St. Lukes and was so terribly sick that we didn't know.  The second when he was at the nursing home and again, terribly sick, and we knew.  And now I think there may be no more.  My trips to my home town will be spread out even further than they were in the past.  My need to be there quickly will be over.  I don't care to give another $75 to the city of my birth that I now just think of as somewhere I am from. 

This Saturday marks the sixth week that my dad has been dead, five since I last saw his face.  Today marks the sixth week since I was last almost bit by my dad, I won that one, he didn't bite me, but maybe I should have let him.  Of course I knew it was that last time he'd bite me, the last ornery thing he would do on this earth.  The last in the longest line of many bites and whisker rubs and cuffs and knee pinches.  

And I am not at peace with he's in a better place or he was ready or any of the other words that people string together to offer some comfort.  I know that heaven is far better than earth, but I will never appreciate the Lord's timing.  My dad still had people to see and a party to go to the following weekend.  He wasn't ready and the Lord knew his plans.  Sometimes I think the Lord is a jerk for taking people too soon as most people are.  I will be angry for a long time at His timing.  His very shitty timing.

Internet memes say that cardinals and dragonflies are those that you love visiting you.  My yard has always been a haven for dragonflies so to see one now doesn't seem any more special.  I find my dad in the things we shared.  Like Ashlyn and her OKLAHOMA album, my tears come when Dean Martin sings with Ricky Nelson in the jail in RIO BRAVO.  Or when I wake up far too early and stand at the front door watching those paper carrier moments when the sun is neither down nor up and am radio plays in my mind.

I miss all that I missed out on because of miles and life choices and being too dumb to ask the questions that I will never know the answers to now.  I miss my dad's laugh and the way he said dumb ass (and he said it a lot).  I miss  

I am grateful that my dad lived such the life that he did!  I am glad that he was ornery.  I am glad that he knows what his grandchildren are doing with their lives.  I am glad that he is home with Mom and his brothers and sister and mom.   I hope that he comes to us in the songs we hear and the people we spend time with.  I pray that he knows how fiercely we loved him and were (are) proud to be his kids.