Celebrate

My Dad celebrated a milestone birthday this week. I can remember my grandparents turning 70 and thinking of them as so OLD, how did this happen to my own father? Honestly, he’s more active than most people half his age and intends to out-live us all, so the new decade doesn’t mean that much to him.

Dad lives more than 600 miles from me and they were throwing a big party for him. I didn’t plan to attend because of time and distance and he totally understood because it takes a lot of planning and effort for me to leave our chaos home. This is a downside of living far away from family; we usually miss the celebrations.

The closer the date of the party, the more I wanted to attend. I mentioned it to my guy and he booked me a flight without hesitation. I would be in Texas for about 17 hours. Perfect.

It wasn’t an easy trip to make; four flights in less than two days, family dynamics and years of layers of scar tissue mean that the threat of more hurt can be just around any corner. I left feeling like every nerve ending was exposed. But I was there to give my Dad a hug, sing Happy Birthday and celebrate him. I’m glad I went.