Today, my father, who died last May, would have been 78.

I couldn’t get to sleep until five o’clock this morning, wondering if there was something I’m supposed to be feeling but I’m not.

I finished mourning the loss of Dad a month or so ago.

I no longer walk through my house, sit in my car or visit my mother and find sadness where once there was a moment I had shared or might have shared an insight with Dad.

The memories are still intact, the emotional wounds less so.

The burden of being the son of a living father was lifted when Dad died.

I don’t worry whether what I’m doing will impress or disappoint him.

I am me, free to pursue ideas that jived with or veered away from Dad’s general philosophical views.

Dad taught me how to catch fish because his grandfather had taught him but Dad was never an avid fisherman.

Dad taught me how to identify features of automobiles that distinguished one brand and one model year from another.  He owned a foreign convertible in his early adulthood and so did I, but we both grew practical in our car ownership as we grew older.

Dad was an enthusiastic gun owner, a former member of a U.S. Army infantry division and political conservative, belonging to more than one secret organization that espoused centuries-old socioeconomic principles he taught in university courses for a couple of decades.

Dad was no liberal college professor.

This morning, I saw a headline that the U.S. President’s wife inserted herself into the U.S. film industry by announcing the winner of a peer-selected prize.

I can imagine Dad’s response — men, usually bosses or politicians, are often accused of acting like dogs and marking their territory by inserting comments into documents/emails or forming political committees that are more hot air than substance — he would have commented that the U.S. President’s wife was trying to accomplish the same thing, leaving a yellow trail on newly-fallen snow.

I would have laughed and Dad would have thought I was laughing at him rather than laughing at the juxtaposition of images he presented or the way he could say something without using the word that was on his mind (“bitch” for the recent one or “bastard” for Bill Clinton).

I tried to get Dad to understand that if he didn’t like someone, then put that person out of his thoughts so that he doesn’t feed that person’s love of being hated.

Some people thrive on being challenged.

Some people love to compete.

For some reason, I never have.

I chose to play baritone horn in junior high school because no one else did and I didn’t have to compete for a “chair” or position; thus, I didn’t have to spend time practicing.

Whatever came to me naturally, with little or no effort, was the activity toward which I gravitated.  I could read faster than a lot of kids in my elementary and junior high school classes, which gave me a natural advantage for completing homework assignments during class time while simultaneously being able to answer the teacher’s questions, drawing the favour of school authority figures and the dislike of kids who weren’t favoured.

Dad recognized these traits and encouraged my growth in similar activities like Boy Scouts, where studying merit badge requirements was a key component to advancement in the ranks.

Unfortunately, Dad interpreted my interest in Scouting as an interest in other military-like organizations, an interpretation I did not discourage because, being a good boy for the most part, I felt compelled to make my father happy in that he rewarded me for obedient son-like behaviour.

Therefore, when I accepted the four-year Navy ROTC scholarship program at Georgia Tech, I was ill-prepared for the rigorous competition in both the classroom and ROTC ranks because it required a level of concentration I had not developed and was not interested in nourishing within myself as a young man taken out of the relatively-sheltered life of a small town in east Tennessee and thrust into the metropolitan life of Atlanta, Georgia, and its many fun distractions.

Simply put, one of the big fish in a small pond thrown into an ocean of much bigger, faster fish.

The habits of my early childhood of either finishing schoolwork and letting my thoughts wander or letting my thoughts wander and not finishing my schoolwork were incongruous with life at university.

I am, at heart, a dreamer — reality is often much too complicated and disappointing compared to my mental fantasies.

My father was not so much a dreamer because harsh reality entered his life at opportune moments, especially one — getting drafted into the U.S. Army.

From what I gather, Dad’s mental state changed during his stint as a soldier.  He became more disciplined and focused on his future.

In other words, the military training took a boy and turned him into a man.

I avoided that step, declining many opportunities along the road of life to become a man rather than continue to be a grownup boy.

I didn’t father a child, I didn’t accept the invitation to become a deacon at my church, I reluctantly climbed the corporate ladder, I delayed finishing a bachelor’s degree for 19 years.

And yet my father’s love for me remained.

He saw me for who I was — a dreamer who likes to write — rather than who he thought I’d become, an evolution of his military/corporate self.

Thank goodness, he and I had the time to adjust to the new reality years before he died.

However, in the last couple of years, as Dad’s brain changed, we assume due to ALS-bulbar option, he became grumpier and more demonstrative in his conservative views.

He seemed alone in our family in his views, neither his wife, son, daughter nor grandchildren exactly agreeing with his opinions, which turned into angry outbursts as his loneliness showed, no one to sympathize with him, no father, mother or siblings to hear him out unconditionally.

In his last two days of life, Dad found peace within himself as he let go of his mortality and felt the love of family more interested in him as a living being slipping comfortably into death than in continuing discordant political philosophies with no resolution.

We gave each other a few hours of happiness the day before he died that stay with me now as I’m glad to say I am my father’s son, who continued some of Dad’s boyhood dreams — writing poetry and stories about muses while working in the corporate office world — dreams he gave me the luxury to pursue, a luxury that his father took away when he abandoned his wife and son, my father, as a child.

Dad, I have no regrets, only dreams unfulfilled, because of your firm but loving kindness.

Thank goodness the birthdays we shared with you were fun so I can feel joyful rather than sad that you aren’t here today for us to wish you another happy birthday.