Today, August 2, is the 103rd anniversary of my father’s birth.

A lot of things have happened since he died back in 2000. I finished the first house Leah and I lived in. He told me the night he died that he was afraid wouldn’t be able to help me work on it. He never got to see it finished.

For years after he died, when I completed some little bit of work on the house, I had the urge to show it to him.

He met Leah before he died, but he had been dead five years before we got married.

My mother died 13 years after he died. I don’t think my father could have handled having her die before him.

We built another house. He never got to walk out onto our front porch and see the view. I wasn’t able to show him the trim I put around the arch on our front living room window.

He never got to see the various RV’s we have had over the years. He and my mother loved traveling with their trailers and in their motorhomes

I couldn’t show him my bright, red truck.

He never got to meet Zeke the dog. Or Sam the dog. Or Zoe the dog. I come from a long line of dog lovers. He would have loved them all.

He never got a chance to walk down Fouche Gap Road with the dogs. He could have named all the birds and all the plants.

He never got to see the foxes that lived around our old house. Or the owl that flew into our garage in our new house.

He didn’t get to see his grandson get married.

Every once in a while I hear a song that I think he would have liked.

My brother died, 18 years after him. That and my mother’s death are two of the few things I’m glad he missed.

I understand why people want to believe in an afterlife, where you can meet your loved ones again. There are a lot of things I would like to talk to my father about.