Sometimes people ask me how I do it….run a business, home school, be a wife, a mom, a friend…..and I normally tell them, I just don’t think about it, I just do it. Sometimes I am great at the balance, sometimes I’m not. That’s part of being human. But the true answer to that question is one simple word…..my dad.

I wanted to share some of my most vivid memories of the strong constant man I call daddy. The man who I always thought was untouchable, would never get older, and never seemed to hurt. I start with the one that will never fade…..

The Never To Tired To Fight For His Family….

We had been haling hay all day and my brother and his friend who was helping wanted to go for a swim in the pond. Our pond was deeper than normal and most of the time we stayed away from the middle, but they were swimming and having fun and my brother got too far out, and he got a cramp……I was walking toward the pond trying to figure out what was going on when my dad (who was exhausted) came running by me. I had never seen him move so fast. He was running toward the pond for all he was worth, stripping off his coveralls, and heading to the boat to get to my brother. And there he went, in the boat paddling as fast as he could, and reached my brother when he was going under the 3rd time.  I wondered at the time why he didn’t just swim to him, then I realized he would have ended up in the same position as my brother,  and we very well would have lost them both that day.  I only have a brother today because of my dad, it is a moment I will never forget.

The Never Stops Even When He Should….

He had been bush hogging a field…….it was a hot day and he never came home before he finished, but on this day he did. He had gotten attacked by Hornets while on the tractor and had to run away. But being the man he is, he came home, got doctored up for the stings and went back to work.  He could have stayed home, he could have rested, he could have stopped, but he just didn’t have that in him.

The Man Who Gave Time He Didn’t Have….

I was 17 and he took me out to lunch at our local burger joint, The Burger Barn. It was just us and I don’t remember the conversation, but it meant so much to me that he took that time for me. I knew how busy he was and how his work never seemed to end, but that time was mine. It is the reason I know that time is precious and more valuable than gold.

So when I push past the pain, the exhaustion, when I give for my family, when I sacrifice one more time, when I don’t stop, when I don’t let myself wallow in the bad times, when I just keep going, it’s because I watched a man do the same and it left an everlasting impression on me, a man I get to call Daddy