In past years, I've tried to share a new song a day, a different song a day, based on what was going on, what I'd heard that day or even sought out to share. This year may not be the same in that respect, because I want to share a song again that I've already shared this year, these few days that we're into the year anyway. I want to share it again and speak to why I want to share it again.
Today was my dad's birthday. He would have been 93 today, but he passed away last September. I still mourn him, but I am also grateful for the man. Maybe it's because I'm now older and have more life on which to look back, but I can now see, with different eyes than the person I was twenty, thirty, forty years ago, the choices he made and how they affected his family… his move to bring his wife and two daughters from Mexico to America–to Texas; his work as a farm laborer, raising a family that added three more children; his decision to move his family to San Jose, then retiring to Oakdale, with his family still nearby.
He was a good father. He was distant, as was the dictates of a man of his time. I don't recall him ever saying he loved me until these last few years, but I've come to see the love he showed us by how he provided for us. He was always there to get us out of scrapes or help us during hard times, or, in the instances when he couldn't… he still stood by us as we faced consequences of our own doing. I can say it now, he loved us until the end.
But I'm sharing this song, not as a tribute to him, though I do want to honor him, but as tribute to the Father that was/is behind all that my earthly father did to provide for his family. I see God's hand in my father's life, and my life and now my daughter's life and her family. I see the legacy. I see God's mercy and grace in the paths we took and the steps He has guided all this time. They've not always been easy, but the Father's guiding hand was and is good and true and sure.
As I said when I first posted this song earlier this year… okay, this week, I love this song. God is a Good, Good Father. It's who He is. He gave me a good father. I am my father's child. And I was loved by him.
And I am my Father's child. And I'm loved by Him.
It's who I am.
Happy birthday, daddy…I miss you.
All Things Elda 