~As I remember my father~

Sending you greetings, dear friends and family, from far away in south western Colorado where the winds continue to blow and the conditions outside remain so very dry.  It's 88 degrees here with only 5% humidity and except for the very brief instance of a quick and blowing rain storm that lasted all of two minutes last evening, I have not seen any precipitation fall from the sky since I have been here.  Without all of the flood irrigation that happens around Montrose, the area around here  would soon dry up and blow away.  In the state of  Colorado, just like so many other places across the U.S., we are desperate for some moisture.  Really very desperate~

I hung out 3 lines full of clothes after lunch today and had a dickens of a time just keeping them on the clothesline where I placed them.  It seems no matter which way the wind blows here, there has never been a time that it didn't blow at least several pieces of laundry off onto the ground.  Today, well it was no exception.  Kind of takes the fun away from hanging out clothes but when you look at it in a different way, the folks that live in the Black Forest area of this state would be glad to trade their problems for mine.  It's all in the perspective friends, all in the perspective.

Alfalfa season is in full swing here and each day swathers go by the house followed in short order by trailers full of baled hay.  Our landlord, Bill, is getting ready to do his very first cutting and as I watch him out the window working on his machinery to get things ready, I am reminded of my own father who loved the land equally as well.  I miss my dad and with the arrival of Father's Day this weekend, I am ever aware of the fact of what a good and kind man he was.

It's been 31 "Father's Days" since I was able to send a card, call on the phone, or give a hug and a kiss to the man I always called my "daddy".  When he died, just two weeks before Christmas Day back in 1982, he was only 59 years old.  As his daughter fast approaches her 58th birthday this October, it's a somber "wake up call" to the fragility of this life.  I thought of my father as "old" back in those days yet now I realize just how young he truly was still. Lung cancer took him from us after only 18 months of being ill with it.  Although I'd love to have him here this Father's Day weekend, I would never call him back to the life that he had to live during those last few months. No one should ever have to sleep, sitting up on the side of their bed so that they can breathe.  I often wonder how he did it and now that I stop to think about it, I never heard him complain about being sick.  He just wanted to fight cancer so he could take care of his family and see his grandchildren grow up.  It was a battle that my father couldn't win, no matter how hard he tried.  When he took his last breaths there in the hospital in Hutchinson, my dad had fought a pretty hard fight and in the early morning hours that Saturday morning, he left us.

Sometimes I think about him and wonder what he would say about my leaving Kansas and moving west to Colorado.  Neither of my parents had ever gone here, even for a visit.  We were "flatlander people" and although they loved the Great Plains states, Kansas was always their home.  They might travel up to the Dakotas to check on the wheat or even go down to Texas to see how the milo harvest was going, but their permanent home was in south central Kansas.  I will always and forever be grateful that they chose to raise their children there.  No matter where I live on this earth, I will be just like them~a flatlander forever.

This will be a different kind of Father's Day weekend for me.  Always before now, I was in Kansas for this time that honours the men who have been our dads, grandfathers, uncles and much more.  Even though I missed seeing my own dad, I was at least around my 2 sons and daughter who are his "living legacies".  Many times those 3 kids of mine would sense that something was wrong, that I was missing my dad.  They'd always get me to talking about their Grandpa Scott and it seemed like if I could just talk about him and the good things that he did for us, then it wasn't so bad that he wasn't there any more.  This year is not the same and I guess that's why I'm telling you all.  He was a fine man but then you can probably say the very same thing about your own dad.  Our dads are like that, you know?

This Sunday, as we celebrate the day of "the dad", I hope that you have the chance to be with your father.  If you can't see them in person, for crying out loud be sure to pick up the phone and call.  Talk to them, find out how things are going with them, just let them know you think of them.  Most dads, like most moms, don't want you to go and buy some fancy gift online for them.  They pretty much have what they need already~what they could use MORE of is the gift of your time.  Coming from someone whose father has been gone for more than 3 decades, do not miss out on the chance to celebrate in some fashion with your father.  You will not regret it if you do but you WILL regret it if you don't.  Trust me on this one~having been there and done that already.

Well, the day has passed quickly by and soon darkness will return to our part of this earth.  I hope and pray that this day has been well for you and that life has treated you "ok".  Despite being far away from home as I once knew it, I know how richly I have been blessed in this life.  Because there once was a man named Barry Renfro, who became a father to a little baby boy named Michael Duane, there will be a reason to celebrate Father's Day on Sunday.  I told Mike when we decided to get married, that if he married me  that he would not only marry me and 3 children of my own but 235 other little kids (my students) as well.  He must have loved me, because he said "Yes, I do!"

Have a great evening friends with a peaceful night's rest for us all.  For those still in the fire's path, no matter here in Colorado or any other of the western states, we are thinking about you and praying for your safety.  May they soon be under control.

Dad and Mom with some of my siblings and myself-The wheat harvest of 1976 in Kinsley, Kansas.  Dang, we sure looked young then :)

The last harvest for him~These photos were taken up in Balfour, North Dakota.  Dad always wanted to move us up there to live but the winters were much too cold for his "flatlander" taste.  I love North Dakota too but I am sure glad that I was born, raised, and lived 57 years in the Sunflower State of Kansas.