Happy Birthday!

When I was little, I saw my dad as this tower of a man, a super hero, and a "jungle gym". He'd come home from working at Sears, smelling nothing of cologne, but like the solder and dust of the television repair department that paid him his monthly wage of approximately $400 bucks. Back then, televisions were "all the rage", and you were "something else" if you actually had one!
...I will never forget the white collared shirts, with the navy blue pants and the Sears insignia patch above the left breast pocket, and his black shiny shoes. That is definitely an era gone by.

Dad would no sooner make his way home, before we were running up to him to tell him about our day...as significant as it was to have learned how to tie our shoes, build forts or tell on each other for the trouble we had gotten into. One of my FAVORITE things to do was to grab both of his hands and start the climb upward into his arms. He humored me until he could no longer bear the weight, but for several years it was my secret comfort zone. He would brace his knees and I would climb until I was wrapped around his neck. At that point, we would usually be nestled into his burgandy, faux leather recliner.

Early on he called me "monkey"...not a fabulous nick name, but it was mine. To this day I am not sure if it was because I was a climber, or because I had such hairy arms...or both!? I readily admit I was a daddy's girl, (still am), and that in his eyes, even to this day, there was little I could do wrong. That's not to say that we both don't know differently, it's just that his tolerance for my demeanor and periodic waywardness is higher than almost anyone elses.

Today is dad's birthday, he is 64. Already receiving his Social Security and heading fast and furious into retirement. His hair, no longer dark and curly, but thinning and silver, cleverly accentuating his eyes. (As crystal blue as they ever were.) Yet a youthfulness resonates in him that can only be attributed to his passion for "living". His accent, though in this country now over 46 years, is still notable and even considerably difficult to understand if you are not around him much. I sometimes wonder how I ever understood him as a child. He knew very little English back then. I remember him speaking "Spanglish" if you will. I guess there is a language that goes beyond words, and if we listen intently we learn to understand. His face is not as smoothe as it was back then, a tall, handsome, Columbian transplant, in his late teens when he came to the U.S., American dreams in tow, but he is still quite handsome!

Dad is a man who dreams big dreams and lives his life on his own terms. Not everyone can appreciate that, and some might even call it selfish or self centered. At times, even I thought so. Now that I am older, I tend to look past those things and focus more on what I know about the man he has become than the man that started the journey, who seemed to get lost every now and then...even disappearing at times, only to eventually find the path again.

I guess its safe to say that I am not so unlike him, and can only hope that my children will learn, as I have, not so much from what I do wrong as what I do right.

Feliz cumpleaños, Papa!
~XO...Monkey