A Day of Importance

It's not an easy thing, being a trophy wife and a daddy's girl at the same time but how could I pick one to get rid of? Tonight I felt almost giddy talking to him on the phone, an odd, uncharacteristic feeling for me at almost any time (I can't think of the last time I was really hyper, which is actually a bit strange itself) and unfortunately not reciprocated since my father has come down with a case of a Bad Cold. His arch-nemesis: one that usually pops up in the fall at some point and lingers for a short while as a stuffy nose and then for a long, long while as a tickling little cough that never quite seems to leave. And on his birthday, a momentous day in many respects (his birthday, two other friends' birthdays, my due-date (I've never been on time)), but today this is the one that really mattered. I've dug myself quite a daughter-hole the past few years by sending lackluster presents (not that he cares) and appeasing my guilt by writing cute little rhyming poem cards, often terribly illustrated, in addition. I think he likes the cards more than the presents, and it's getting harder and harder to write them. Try finding a different rhyme for "Day" twice a year (here and Father's Day) and then fill in at least 4 other stanzas of intelligent cuteness. This year was particularly bad, in my opinion, with a whole line about cornfields in Urbana. My, how my eloquence sinks to a new low. But they are still fun to write once the words come easily and I do enjoy the outrageous contortions of English that I happily scribe on a clean sheet of notebook paper or (my favorite) on delicately folded napkins from Pierce. Which, before you turn your nose up, is even cuter since he used to live there. Gotcha with that one. (Apparently I'm still feeling a bit giddy even now....)

I had a point that was more serious to make which I suppose I'll only really mention in passing, just because I really want it said. We were talking about the poems tonight and my mom mentioned that I get it from my grandfather - apparently he used to write little poems to my grandma (my mom's parents) back in the day which she loved. This may not seem like a big deal at all (and I do realize this is just about rhyming poems) but my grandfathers both died before I was born. No one ever talked about them much and there were a few pictures around so I've always felt a certain gap in that way. It probably doesn't help that my grandmothers didn't live much longer themselves - the price of having the youngest-children as parents, I guess. I do know some things about my grandfathers (one made false teeth in the Loop, one was a community-college Spanish teacher) but nothing on the small intimate scale of real familial memory. Now I have one little connection - trivial yet comforting. I can think of this phantom next year when I'm struggling to alliterate - now I'm inspired to keep trying.