Pretend

I miss a great many things. Sitting in the back yard. Talking about things that mattered, things that didn't matter. The intricacies of lawnmower repair. Listening to old (so old that I'm not sure it could be called classic) country music. Stories of old cars that didn't start and then having to get a mule to pull the car back to the top of the hill to try to crank the car again. Making fun of various relatives. Setting each other up to make jokes. (speaking of which..... One time we were at my great aunt's house cutting grass. Now Aunt Gladys was about 83  at the time, and still tried to garden and had walked out to her garden which was about 200 yards from her house. And she wasn't a small lady. Anyway, she asked me to let the tailgate down on my truck and drive her back to the house, which I did. Later, I said to Daddy "you know, the book says not to drive with the tailgate down without a load on it" to which he replied "oh it had a load on it".  But I digress.)

Mostly, I just miss Daddy.

Things have been tough lately at work. Many times when I used to have bad days/weeks/months of work, I would call Daddy. Would I talk about work problems? Sometimes, but most times, we'd just talk. Nothing in particular, but just talking with him for awhile would ease my mind and lighten my heart and I could continue on.

After Daddy was diagnose with cancer, I found it hard to talk to him. Not that I didn't want to talk, but everything seemed so mundane. My father was quite literally daily fighting for his life. What else really mattered?

Sure, we tried to make small talk, pretend things were normal. But that's all it was.

Pretend.