my dads 84th birthday...

It was my fathers birthday on Friday. He would have been 84 years old.  I can imagine him, with whiter hair and a fully white mustache ` he would have been a handsome man even at 84.  But I don't think he would have been happy to live this long.  I wasn't ready to face that until last week when I was at my daughters visiting.  She invited all of her friends over for 'mamas' food.  I prepared a mexican feast just like my kids like- this is a pretty involved affair. Thats 7 separate items to prepare.

It was 4 simple words

I was hurrying to get the food timed and out on cue, something I always prided myself with being able to do with a Martha Stuart  ease. But that was before the injury from the chiropractor, before the stroke.  Its so much more challenging now. I nearly burned something, then nearly spilt all of the salsa out of the blender because the bottom came loose and Sophie said. don't worry mom "you still got it." Those words bounced around with a loudness of a bullet in a barrel as I finished up. Truly I was holding back the tears because my mind went back to my dads last piece of furniture he made me. Well, the bed I am sitting in right now.  It is in the background of many pictures here on my facebook.  By the time he was completing it his diabetes had made his eyesight a bit worse and the varnishing was more troublesome than it had ever been before. I remember the sadness it brought him when we discovered a couple of small drips on the back of the bed -really small drips. But he was a perfectionist and his work showed it. I could tell it bothered him even though to me it was just another little bit of him that I would always have. Standing there in Sophies kitchen I felt just like my dad. Knowing that I could do this so well at one time and now while I could do still do it, I could no longer shine at it. 

my dads legacy.

So the final years of my dads life were not the greatest for him professionally, a craftsman never really retires - he only starts working from home. But with his eyesight failing his desire to build seemed to decline. Now, I finally understand. He didn't stop building because he lost interest- he stopped because he lost his confidence that he could do it to HIS standards! For that I am so very sad. Being in that situation myself I see why he was so lost. It seems that on my dads birthday he sent to me another life lesson transcending the space between us.  I managed to connect my circumstance to the pain he could not articulate.  

Now I understand that I cannot hold myself to the standard of my peak performance, I may never get to that level with cooking again- and thats OK! I can teach Sophie, or Jack or Joe. I can learn something completely different and master it to the highest level or I can adapt my expectations!