I was feeling off the last couple of weeks and I didn’t know why. Yes, there is a massive change on the horizon of my life, but I am processing that methodically. This was something else… Then it hit me when I posted the photo of me with my father for Cee’s Black and White Challenge last week —it’s been ten years since I lost him. It was February of 2009.  

I was blessed to be a beloved daughter, and Papa was my first hero. I called him Papa instead of Dad or Daddy —his choice, he wanted to be different. He was a story-teller, too. I marvel at what a vivid imagination he had.  He made up a whole series of adventures involving our neighbor’s cat:  Mopsy, and another one with a little old man and a cuckoo clock that always saved the day. And most of the time, he made them up on demand: “Tell me a story, Papa!” I remember traveling in Scotland with my parents when I was about six years old and passing a desolate stretch of land with these strange formations: bigger than mounds, smaller than hills. As we drove along, Papa made up a story about how it was a “Giant’s Graveyard” and the events that led to all the giants dying. Alright, that’s pretty morbid, I suppose, but I remember being completely engrossed in the story and begging for more. Oh, how I wish I’d recorded some of those wonderful tales he created for me when I was little.

He didn’t live long enough to see me become a writer. He would have loved knowing that he passed that ‘gift’ on to me. It’s just one of the many ways that I am my father’s daughter.