On My Father's Birthday

 Today my father would have been 108 years old. He’s been gone almost 33 years, and I still miss him terribly.

Lately, as I’ve been recovering from my knee replacement, I’ve been thinking a lot about him and his courage, both as a WWII pilot and later when he was so sick with cancer. On the harder days, I can almost hear his voice telling me to keep going and to be strong.

This morning, while I was walking Augie, a man stopped, looked at him, and said,
“Go get ’em, Tiger.”

Those are the exact words my father used to say to my sister and me whenever we were facing something hard. I actually stopped for a second.

In that moment, it didn’t feel like a coincidence. It felt like him. Like his way of saying hello on his birthday.

If I think about his “Special Job,” the way I describe it in Caitlin’s Star, I can picture it so clearly. He’d be leading a group of children in a march, singing I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts, with all of them following along right behind him.

That was him then and even now!

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