Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Father (as in paternal parent, not God) (04/10/08)
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TITLE: Memories | Previous Challenge Entry
By Dottie Bonventre
04/14/08 -
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Father, wow, my father! It was just yesterday, April 12th that marked the day this world lost a remarkable man and I temporarily said good bye to my father. On the other hand heaven rejoiced as he entered the gates to be with his Father who I am sure said to him, well done young man!
Father, just the word itself stirs up within me the most wonderful emotions as I recall my days with dad. My dad was father to eleven children. I was sandwiched in between five boys and right in the middle of the brood of eleven. My dad had the uncanny ability of making each one of us feel special and very valued. Almost every day my father would say to me “You are my joy.” It is interesting to me that at that time those words did not resonate with me but now some seventeen years later it is exactly what I tell my three children and my four grandchildren, “You are my joy.”
I remember my father waking me up early in the morning and saying, Dottie, come with me, you need to see this. I rushed down the stairs and he was staring out the window and said, “Look”. As I rubbed the night out of my eyes and looked out the picture window I saw the most amazing glorious sun just rising over the bay, the water glistening as the rays of the golden sun were beaming down with hues of red hovering over it. My father’s face was as radiant as the sun at that moment and that memory is etched within my soul. As I looked back at my dad I was able to see the love of God and the beauty of all that was good right in my father’s eyes. My father then turned to me and said “Isn’t God amazing that he would create something so beautiful just for our pleasure?” My father understood the deeper things in life. My father’s love enabled me to grasp the love of God and his love also can me footprints to follow as I began to create my own path in this world.
One of the many wonderful talents my father was gifted with was being a great storyteller. He was able to deliver in Gaelic, Italian, Yiddish, or any other version he needed to make us laugh. After dinner we would ask him to tell us a story over and over again. With each new rendition he would embellish it just a little bit more and we would laugh just a little bit harder each and every time.
With life comes changes and on April 12, 1991 I said good bye to my father from this side of heaven. What I cherish the most is that I have no regrets and no disappointments. My dad lived a good life and I live because of him. He taught me to love, to give and not to be concerned with receiving. He was an unselfish man who gave right up to the end. On the day of my father’s funeral which was held at his church the Pastor informed all of us that my father had ordered and pre-paid for a luncheon not only for the family but for all of the senior citizens in his church. My very first thought was, ‘That is so dad”. So in my moment of grief I was reminded once again about the lives he touched and the purpose for which he lived. My father has impacted my life by merely loving me and teaching me what love looks like. What a privilege it was to not only known this man but to actually have been blessed and honored to call him my father.
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