Yesterday would have been my father’s eighty-first birthday. I spent much of the day looking through old photo albums (remember those?) and mourning his loss. Twenty-one years after his death, the rawness of my grief has abated, but the intensity remains the same.

I am the only female child of my parents and I was the absolute apple of my dad’s eye. I adored  him, hero-worshiped him, and, later, learned to accept that he was not the perfect man I’d idolized. He gave me a gift that every parent should their children, he loved me, and he told me so constantly in both words and actions.

It’s not that my father didn’t have flaws. My goodness, he had those aplenty, but my father was an ethical man in corrupt country whose idealism never faltered. He was a visionary. I can still remember the day I introduced him to the Apple 1 and Visicalc. He was astounded, but turned to me, and said, “This is the future. This will change our world. We have to get in on the ground floor.” And we did. My dh and I were in the first graduating class of the launch of the IBM PC. A launch that gave birth to the technology world as we know it today. IBM legitimized what was then a rouge industry.

But, I digress. I have Dad’s picture on my desk and in my bedroom. I still miss him every single day, and I suspect that will go on until the moment I expel my last breath.

Love you Daddy and wish you were here,

Your daughter,

J