Passages: Daddy

Yesterday, while Jimmy and I were at the hospital, waiting for the new little person that was about to enter our life, I couldn't help but think of Daddy. Today would have been his ninety-second birthday, had he not been taken from us twenty-two years ago, when he was much too young. He had died from complications of surgery, in that same hospital, just a few floors up.

He was a quiet man, thoughtful, gentle, sweet-natured and romantic. He loved books and music, movies and politics, his family and friends, First Methodist Church, and Mama. He and Mama were madly in love with each other, sometimes to the chagrin of their children. It was not unheard of for us to walk in with our friends and find them on the back porch, slow-dancing to "Moon River," lost in a starry-eyed world of their own.