HAPPY BIRTHDAYDAY DADDY! James Wilton (J.W.) Choron July 25 1917 - July 28 1999 Dear Daddy, Its your birthday again. You’d be 97 years old if you were still with me. I don’t even want to think about how old I am, but I’ll never make it to 97, or even to the 82 years that I had you with me. Once again Ill sit here and resist making that call that I know wont be answered… or at least not by you. You can’t imagine how that feels. Well, maybe you can. We made so very many calls over the years and they were answered every time. Then -- fifteen years ago this year they stopped coming. Now, those calls only come to me in my dreams and in my memories. Memories that flood back from the past and I wake up with something you’ve never seen, tears on my pillow. Sometimes I’m told that I dream a lot ‘that’ night and that I talk in my sleep. Maybe I do. Maybe I’m not dreaming. I don’t know. I only know how real it is to me when I wake up, and how it stays with me all day while I resist picking up the phone and wait for it to ring. I waited a long time to write this letter Daddy. It changes some every year. You know why. You always taught me that if I ever did anything, no matter what it was, to do it to the best of my ability and to do it right. Well, I hope Im doing it right this time, because I want... Ive always wanted... for you to be proud of me. Ive always tried to make you proud of me. I just want you to know, now, just like always, just how proud I’ve always been of you. Ive always told people that if I could be just half the man you are, Id be a success beyond anything I could ever dream of. I hope and I pray that one of these days just one person will say that about me. You were a big man Daddy, and you left me a pair of mighty damned big shoes to fill. Im trying. I’m trying hard, but I know I’ll never make it. It wasnt too long after Fathers Day that you left us. Just a little over a month. It was only four days after your birthday. I knew that you were 82 years old that year, but it just didn’t seem like it to me. They say that’s ‘old’, but you never seemed old to me. I talked to you on the telephone about a week before you left us. I was here, and you were there – four thousand miles apart. I was about to leave on a business trip and wouldn’t be near a phone. I wanted to be sure that you got your birthday call. God in Heaven I wanted to be there with you. You were sick then Daddy, and we both knew it, but you tried your best to let me know youd be there when I got home from my latest trip. I promised you that I’d call as soon as I got back. I did as soon as I got back here, but when I did, you werent there anymore. Somehow I already knew that though. I felt it. I’d been feeling it for several days. It hurt. I don’t ever remember hurting like that. But wed already made our peace and said our goodbyes and I knew that you were at peace and not in that horrible pain any more... and somehow that put me at peace. You see Daddy, one of these days well be together again. I’m just waiting now. But, the thing is Daddy, youre still not gone to me. I still feel you around me and I still know youre with me. You always will be Daddy. I see you, hear your voice and feel you around me every day, in almost everything I do. You taught me so many things. The main things you taught me were honesty and integrity and that if a job was worth doing, it was worth doing right. You taught me to love, and to love unconditionally. Most people dont have much choice in what they get in the way of children. You and Mama did. You and mama didnt have to take me. You didnt have to spend the sleepless nights and thousands of dollars... back in the days before insurance... to keep a battered and broken child alive from one minute to the next while you hoped and prayed that hed make it. You did that anyway. You did that out of love. I know that most children love their parents, but I guess knowing what I do makes me love you even more. Daddy, I can still close my eyes and lean back, and if I listen real hard I can hear you picking your guitar and singing. I can hear you picking along with me when I decide to do a little picking... I finally learned how, but I’m not and never will be as good at it as you were. You could play six instruments Daddy, and you taught yourself how to play them. I still remember a little song that you wrote for me when I was almost too tiny to understand it. There are a lot of things like that. Every time I have car trouble I think about you just standing there, listening to it run for a minute or two, and telling me exactly what to do... always right. I still can’t do that. There are a lot of things that you could do that I still can’t. It would take days for me to even mention all of the things that you were and did in your life. I see you beside me when I go to church, when I go to lodge and when I’m just sitting around the house watching a movie that we both enjoyed. I remember your smile, your laugh and going home, no matter what had happened or what was bothering me, you being able to make me feel better about whatever it was. You’d drop whatever it was that you were doing and make whatever problem that I had the most important thing in the world to you even if I knew that it wasn’t and that I was keeping you away from something that was really important. I guess I just want to say this Daddy. Its your birthday, and three days later itll be 15 years you’ve been gone. I can’t believe it’s been 15 years since I heard your voice except for in my mind and in my dreams. I’ll do it again this year. I know that I will. Once again Ill sit here and resist the temptation to make a telephone call that I know wont be answered, and wait for one that I know wont come. So at dinnertime on the 25th Ill crack a bottle of Jack Black and pour two shots, one for you and one for me, just like we always did... Ill down mine, then wait about five minutes and down the other one for you. I’ll do the same thing on the night of the 28th too. You see, I love you Daddy. I always have, and I always will. I wish you could see my book Daddy. Maybe you can. You encouraged me to keep writing. You called it ‘building air castles’. Well, I’ve built at least one pretty good ‘air castle’. Its dedicated to you... No one deserves it any more than you do. There were a few more ‘air castles’ too -- the kids -- your grandkids. I thank God every day that you were able to be with them for as long as you were. They all remember you and they all love you still… most likely more than they love me… but that’s alright. You deserve it more. You’ve got 7 great-grandkids now, and I wish that just one of them had known you or even been born while you could have at least held them. Jimmy And just for the record... Id still rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy... and you taught me that too… If tears could form a highway And memories a lane. I’d walk right up to Heaven And be with you again! Help me share this along Larry. A lot of people knew Daddy, but I dont have all of them on my list. These photos were made in Sept. 1989 on their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Daddy missed his their 60th Anniversary by 6 weeks. He passed on three days after his 82nd Birthday.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 12:14:25 +0000