Ramblin...

Ok, so I just remembered what I forgot to write about yesterday! ugh! I started rambling a little and totally forgot to say what I wanted to about Dad's lack of emotion... Remember when I was saying how we were reminiscing so much about stories of our loved ones. Well, Dad was extremely sentimental. I saw tears well up in his eyes on quite a few times. I was kinda shocked about it. I know that my Dad can get very nostalgic. I also know that my father misses the times of his childhood. My Dad was lucky, he got the Camelot years. My 2 younger uncles (one of which is Barry and he's only 5 years older than me and we're more like brother/sister than uncle/niece) weren't as lucky. My Dad is the oldest of the children. He was a youngster when Birckhead Electric was in it's prime. My Dad was lucky enough to have a new car (a 1965 Ford Mustang, no less) given to him, along with the best years of Gramma and Grandpa's marriage. Unfortunately, trust was put into the wrong person and my Grandpa's business suffered, tremendously. At the same time, my grandparents' marriage fell apart (as did my Mom and Dad's--but for unrelated reasons). John David, my uncle, started having behavior and drug problems, of which my grandfather could not and would not tolerate. (I am the offspring of EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE southern folk, remember and disrespect (in any and all forms) was NOT acceptable) Needless to say, Grandpa Birckhead and John David's relationship was practically null and void, which sparked problems with the entire family. It was a volatile and sad time. My father, of course, had started his life with my mother and me, so he wasn't as much in the thick of the family drama as the rest of the children. However, he did deal with his own drama with my grandfather, as he was the vice-president (in his very early 20's) of Birckhead Electric. It was extremely devastating to my father to see his father, this larger than life man, slowly break and then eventually turn into basically a hermit. I know that Dad battles a lot of demons about being the one to care for my grandfather in the end. He doesn't think he did as good a job as he should have, as he was going thru yet another divorce. He did the best he could--I've told him so, but I guess you never think you do enough. Especially for someone you love and idolize as much as Dad did Grandpa. I guess that's why he can get very melancholy when speaks of "the past" lately. At one point, he was telling me about my Great Uncle Eddie (Grandpa Birckhead's brother) losing a child only a couple of days after child birth. Another story I didn't know, by the way. The baby was a boy... It took my father a couple of times to say "I remember Uncle Eddie always saying he wished he had a little Jack"... I didn't know what hurt my heart more, the fact that Uncle Eddie lost and longed for his baby son or that my Dad choked up and couldn't hardly tell us that story and how much he misses those days.

God is Love--Peace Out