like it was yesterday and yet it was 21 years ago...

Today marks the day -- 21years ago -- when at 10pm i received a phone call that my daddy had been beaten up and may not make the night. my daddy was taken from me by a selfish man and his girl friend. Today is the day that I not only lost my daddy (in a purely emotional and mental way) but my kids lost the most amazing Papa. It is so hard to believe that it has been 21years! It seems like just yesterday he was calling me to tell me a joke or just to 'yak'.
My daddy was a  man who would give you the last dollar he had to help you out. He would phone you to make you laugh to cheer you up or to see how things were. He would buy lotto tickets and give them all to you and sincerely hope you would win big! Family was everything to my dad - he would pick me up for a weekend and we would drive to Muskokas to visit with my gramps and gran and aunts and cousins. He would smile and laugh, hugging us, giving us a bit of money for pops and treats.
He was a trucker, who spent many hours and days on the road, hauling semi's from one end of the country to the other. He hauled cattle and other freight to all corners! He was maybe not the best ever husband but he sure was an awesome daddy.
We would spend hours singing to all the tapes in his truck as we drove the Yellowhead highway through Canada and then the TansCanada once it was done. We ate copious amounts of kielbasa and ritz crackers and cheese on the road. We stopped at all the best truck stops for coffee, pie, dinner, lunch, breakfast and pee breaks. We would laugh talking to other truckers on the CB radio and daddy would be reminding them every so often that his little girl was listening so please watch the language (most of the truckers complied and would talk to  me about school and riding with daddy).





I miss him ....
every
single.
day.
and there will never be another 'him'.

He was so handsome and it used to drive me crazy when he would come to pick me up at school and girls would giggle and gawk at him...but only a little because I was so proud to him as my daddy. He would take me shopping for clothes and tease me about bras and new styles, but he was so much fun to be with, everything we did was a crazy, fun adventure.
i remember once getting caught swearing (I said sh!t when I was trying to make something for him and mom) and that night as we drove to pick up my mom from work he said' you know Jo, I heard what you said earlier and Iim pretty disappointed that you would choose to use that language' (even though he used it), I remember being so heart broken and disappointed in my self to have disappointed him and those words were all it took to make me want to try to be better for him to be proud of me.
He taught me a bit about Jesus growing up and i know he believed in Him. This makes me very happy to know!

When I had our first child, Joshua, on June 19 (Fathers Day) we called him from the hospital and he cried. He showed up at our house for the September long weekend to see not only Joshua be dedicated to God, but to see Dennis and I both baptized.

When our second son Sam was born on dec 16, 1995, Daddy showed up on my doorstep with a car loaded with gifts for the boys on Dec 22 and he stayed until 27 then headed back to Alberta go to work. He head Sammi and beamed with smiles! He was so proud to have a baby Holmes (sam's middle name). He played with Joshua for hours and wouldn't let me do anything for the boys that was usually my job (diapers, feeding meals, etc.) He took over and helped as if he lived with a hundred babies all the time!

That day he left for home, was the last day I ever saw my dad in person. He came running back into the house after he got in his car and gave me his favourite jean jacket and told me to look after it for him....
and I have.


I can't begin to describe the empty hole left by him. How my kids will never know how amazing he was, how funny, how generous, how caring. Ask I can do it tell stories and show pictures... because the man that is left is nothing.... and I mean NOTHING like my daddy.





I miss you Daddy.

One day we will be together again in heaven...


I know it;


I can't wait.