Daddy.

Jun 16, 2013

It’s Father’s Day.  And every Father’s Day, I become very sad.  My Daddy was taken from me when I was only 23 years old, and he was only 46.  It was sudden and horrible and if I let myself go back and think about that phone call, I become basically incoherent for a period of time.  I was Daddy’s Little Girl, maybe the original one.  We held hands everywhere we went together, even when I was 23 years old.  He was my favorite person.

He was a real Alabama boy, getting in trouble from an early age and always one of those kids you had to watch.  Here’s him as a baby, before he went a little wild.

That’s my grandpa holding him, a man I never really knew because he was divorced from my “Nanny” {grandmother} before I was born, and I’ve only seen him in person less than a handful of times.  My grandmother remarried a man I considered my grandfather, but he passed on when I was 14.  My grandmother, Nanny, passed when I was 21.  It was back-to-back losses for me, losing Daddy Boyd, then Nanny {to cancer}, then my Daddy just a couple years later.

But I’d like to try to focus on the great things about my Daddy today, the things that made him original, the things that made him Rickey Lynn Herron.

Here he is in 1962:

You can see he was a goofball.  That never changed.  He was always in trouble.  He even knocked his friend’s eye out with a rock.  He was all boy.  He was always sad that he had done that; it was an accident, but it happened nonetheless.

Here’s Daddy as a teenager:

I used to love to hear my grandmother tell the story of how she went out of town, and my teenage daddy sold all the furniture in a yard sale to buy marijuana.  My crazy daddy, livin’ in the 1970’s.  I’m sure I’ve bought enough yard sale furniture back now to make up for it 😉

I was born in 1977 and he calmed down some then.  He married my mom and soon after, I came along.

In 1979, a brother came along, and another one in 1983.

When I was nine years old, my parents divorced.  I lived with my mom for a while, then my dad, then my mom again.  We really tried to see Daddy every weekend, and he never once shirked his duties in seeing us.  He remarried, divorced, and married again.

Here’s some pictures through the 1980’s.

My dad married his third wife when I was about 14 and she had two little girls.  One of them lived with her grandmother, but the other one lived with us.  She was just a baby when my daddy married her mother.  So, it was like having a new baby sister.

For many years, my Daddy ran a car wash, but after my Daddy Boyd died, he began to run our family’s car dealership.  I don’t think he really liked it very much.  I think he always loved detailing cars, even though it was hot, dirty work.  He loved it.  And he was very successful with it too.  By the time he died, he had moved on to work at a Ford dealership and then on to own another car wash – Sparkle & Shine.

My Daddy loved to attack me…tickle me…all sorts of embarrassing things!

Here’s my Daddy doing his “Weekend at Bernie’s” impersonation.  Truly, he was a dork.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my hairy daddy – with his “rooster hair.”  LOL

And another of his crazy silly faces!!  He was such a fun guy to be around!!

Here’s Daddy with me, just before I graduated high school.  I wish I remembered this night better…but my memories have faded with time.  I don’t even remember if we went out to eat, but I guess we did.

Daddy LOVED showing off his truck and its amazing sound system.  Here he is with his victory spoils!

I think my Daddy’s favorite person was my beloved grandmother, Nanny.  When cancer finally robbed us of her, after her valiant and long battle through lung cancer, throat cancer, and two bouts of brain cancer, he had a huge void in his life.  I don’t think he knew how to get along without her.  They had such a special bond.  I think he drove her crazy lots of times, and she bailed him out of many situations she probably shouldn’t have, but no one can doubt that the two of them loved each other fiercely.  And I loved and still LOVE them both.

When I think of my Daddy, I think of his laughter and his appetite for fun.  He loved going to the lake, being on the water, taking vacations, doing car shows, and being a friend.  He had a great life in his short 46 years and never took a moment for granted.  He experienced a lot of pain, a lot of rejection, a lot of things that could have made him a very bitter person, but he never was.

I wish I could list all of the funny things he did over the years, like the Christmas that my stepmother gave him a new Harley Fat Boy and she brought it in the house and put it by the tree.  I woke up to the sound of him cranking up the motorcycle in the next room and a few seconds later, the smoke alarms all going off.

There is a big part of me who is insanely jealous of people who still have their daddies.  I wish I didn’t feel that way, but I do.  He never lived to see my youngest brother graduate high school.  He never met any of his grandchildren.  He never saw me find happiness with my husband.

I just love him and miss him and I hope if you are reading this, you’ll call your dad while you still can.  I used to talk to mine almost every day.  I cherish those memories and would love to hear his voice again, just for a moment.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.