When my older sister and two older brothers were younger, my dad was shaving my brother’s heads. My sister, a Tom boy with waist length curly hair, sat in the chair after my second brother had his shaved and asked to go next. My dad, who was in charge of brushing her tangled curls, didn’t hesitate for a moment. He laughed his amazing belly laugh, and gleefully shaved her head. My sister was thrilled, and ran off to play, “King of the hill” with my brothers. It’s a legendary story in my family.

On March 16, twenty six years ago, we got the call that our legend of a father took his last breath. I went numb. My brothers happened to be shaving each other’s heads. I sat in the chair, and asked my brother, Josh, to shave my head. He joked around and asked me if I was serious, and I said yes. Afterwards, I ran and jumped in our pool, that was covered with a sheet of ice. I screamed under water. I didn’t feel the cold. I only felt my broken heart wretch and twist and grieve.

I walked around with my bald head and my spark dulled way down. I remember returning to college and my poetry professor looking at me like a dad would and he said that I looked beautiful.

I won my college’s annual writing contest in the categories of poetry and short story that year. One day, walking to class, I heard clear as day, “There she is! Miss America!” I had no grid for hearing God’s voice during that time in my life, and it both comforted me and scared me. Had my dad been alive, that’s exactly the song he would have sung to me to celebrate my wins. Every time I got a good report card, won an award, or just because, he would sing that to me.

I miss my dad all the time, but when I think of him, I picture him cheering me on. I can hear his laugh, and I can hear him singing. Not live like that day, but those sweet memories of times gone by. Echoes of the past. I am grateful for him. I miss him.

When I was healed from seventeen years of painful chronic pain in October of 2021, Care Pastor Wayne Ritchie sang, “There she is! Miss America!” as I entered my church on the day I realized I was healed. He’s like a dad to me, so that was very special on so many levels. He had no idea about my history with that song.

When I was a little girl, I would lay my head on my dad’s stomach and listen to his belly growl and digest his dinner as he held me while we watched TV. These days, when I pray, I imagine leaning my head on Jesus’ chest, and listening to His heart. He comforts me. He holds me. He sings over me now.
RIP daddy-o, padre, chief, and friend.