Drive Safe.

August 24th, 2019

Our family is not super affectionate. In fact, I can count on probably all of my fingers and toes all of the times I’ve heard my dad tell me “I love you.”

Of course I KNOW my dad loved me. There is no doubt in my mind. He showed it by coming to every talent show, musical, concert, and watching my cheer in high school. He showed his love with whisker rubs and tickle fights and by how hard he worked to put food on the table and make sure my mom could stay at home with us kids.

The standard “I love you” was replaced with “Drive safe” whenever us kids were heading out – sometimes when we weren’t even driving anywhere more than across town.

Here’s an excerpt from my mom’s blog:

“So…one day we were driving home from a trip to Lacrosse. I was on the phone talking to Kayla telling her the latest news about his upcoming plan. Kramer was driving. Kayla said, “Tell Dad I love him…but if that’s awkward, just tell him ‘Drive Safe’ “. So I hung up with her and I said to Kramer, “Kayla says I’m suppose to tell you that she loves you…but if that makes you feel awkward, she says, ‘Drive Safe’.”

Kramer and I both bust out laughing. It was the ice breaker to the conversation of being more affectionate that we all needed. To be honest, it seemed like saying something as simple as “I love you”, was an elephant in the room.”

You can read the full blog post here:https://www.joscountryjunction.com/drive-safe/

Anyway, after my Dad died I wanted something to remember him by. Not only that but the fact that those 129 days were the hardest of my entire life.

Dad HATES tattoos and us kids always joke now that he’s gone we can all get one. It isn’t completely off of the table but I know he would roll over in his grave if we all got tattoos to remind us of him.

So I settled on jewelry. Huge shout out to Mark’s Jewelry for helping me find the PERFECT piece for me. I picked it up this morning and I absolutely adore it.

I felt it was fitting to stop by the cemetery on my way home. I dusted the grass off of his grave and someone was kind enough to bring flowers to dad and leave them on his gravestone as well. It was a beautiful day. Dad’s final resting place is just perfect – surrounded by farmland just outside of town. When we buried him the corn was barely knee high. Now as you can see it is almost ready for harvesting.

It will be almost 3 months without you Dad. I miss you every single day. Anddd……I didn’t get that tattoo 😉