Just the Miles and the Memories

I cried in the card aisle of the drug store the other day.

Not because the cards were particularly touching, but because it dawned on me I’ll never need to buy my dad another father’s day card.  He died a little over two years ago and sometimes, the grief can still hit me like a ton of bricks.  I stood in the middle of the store with tears streaming down my face, unable to even form words.

I miss him.  Terribly.

I have a few watershed moments with him where I remember distinctly things he said or did or things he taught me.  But what I miss the most are those times of companionable silence in the car with the windows rolled down and the radio turned up to the station that played classic country.  He’d drive me to the arena to ride my horse or to the farm to walk my pigs.  Sometimes he’d drive me and the horse to local shows.  Sometimes we had no destination in mind at all, we just drove the countryside.  We’d sing along to Johnny Paycheck or Jim Reeves or Johnny Horton as the miles sped past.  His rich deep voice drowning out the radio, his left arm hanging out the driver’s side window, hand strumming along with the beat of the music.  The point wasn’t ground breaking conversations…it was to just be together.

God what I would give to load up in a car with him and drive the backroads of Goshen County.  I can almost hear the stories he’d tell about pheasant hunting and losing the family dog now.  I’d tell him about Wyokiddo and our latest fishing adventures.  But mostly we’d just drive and sing.

Yeah they ran through the briers and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ’em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

So snap those photos with him.  Take the road trips.  Suffer the bad jokes and the unsolicited advice and the occasional “back in my day…”  Because all too soon it will just you in the car singing solo to the miles and the memories.

I miss you, Big Guy.  Sing a little Marty Robbins for me on Sunday, won’t you?

T-Bird