Salad Dressing Moment

I'm sitting at the Oakland Airport waiting for a flight to Portland so I can go back to my base to sit Reserve tomorrow before I do my trip on Friday. It's not the most glamorous part of my job, by any means...anyway, as I am sitting here waiting, I have been thinking a lot about my sweet dad. I am absolutely amazed that he has been gone for over 3 weeks now. Time moves on so quickly sometimes and as the late great George Harrison so eloquently stated, "Life flows on within you and without you." What a whirlwind these past 22 days have been. Watching him die and sitting by his bedside day and night to having a beautiful funeral to honor his life to burying him and saying our final "goodbyes"...well, at least for now!

Anyway, I have had plenty of time to reflect and remember. After all, reflecting and remembering is all we have after we lose someone we love. I have been very calm, haven't really had a breakdown and feel an amazing amount of peace and comfort from above. I can't deny that the Comforter has been very near and has done a beautiful job in comforting my whole family.

So I have been wondering. Am I going to breakdown? My husband lost his sweet mother a few
years ago and did very well considering she was all he had for a parent. One day we were at the grocery store...he had gone to another aisle to pick up a forgotten item. When he joined
me at the checkout, he was teary. He proceeded to tell me that he had seen bottle of Catalina
Dressing and it almost brought him to his knees because his mother loved it; it was her favorite.
We have kind of chuckled about that incident, but now that I am in the same situation, I'm wondering what MY Catalina Dressing will be?? I have avoided listening to certain songs, watching cetain football games and the Western & Food channels because I know that I will
possibly lose it. Silly, I know, but I'm not sure that I am ready to face the earthly finality of his passing.

I was talking to some dear friends who have lost loved ones and asked them if I was some sort of freak because I haven't "lost it". They shared very familiar feelings and we came to agree that maybe we are "OK" because everything that could be said has been said and our respective relationships with those that we lost was in the best place possible. You see, I had a GREAT relationship with my father. Don't get me wrong, we had our differences over the years...probably because we were more alike than we realized at the time, but there was NOTHING left undone.

Along with the assurance that my sweet daddy is in a better place, free from the bonds of his broken down body, how grateful I am that he left this world knowing that I, along with his other 3 children and devoted wife, had nothing negative between us. We were all there at the end taking care of him, whispering our redundant "I Love You's" and expressing seemingly endless, "Thank You's". That is a blesssing and through the inevitable pain of loss, it serves as the most sincere kind of comfort possible.

Take time to mend broken relationships. Express your sincere love and gratitude to those you love every day. Put aside petty differences and focus on the blessings of the relationships that you have with those you love. Life is SO short. Regrets are more painful than swallowing your pride, eating a little crow and offering a humble apology. Do what you have to do, say what you have to say, but DO IT. Relationships are precious and fragile...handle them with care and do whatever you can to make things right...

Just Count the Good Strokes

My sweet daddy, J (Jay) Ronald Swint, passed away on September 19, 2011 at home. He suffered terribly for many years with ill health but did so with grace and integrity.

I don't remember hearing my dad complain about feeling bad, ever. But I did hear him try to joke and make things better. If he bust out into song with a rousing rendition of "I feel good..." we knew he was in extreme pain. He tried to keep a positive outlook on life and he tried to be happy and joyful all while enduring faithfully to the end.

I love my daddy with all my heart. He was a great man! He had an exciting, even glamorous life through his work with Capitol Records in the "hey-day" of great music. He knew and worked with the greats. I'm talking Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, The Beach Boys, even The Beatles. He was great at his job, but that is not what defined him. He wanted to be remembered as a man of integrity and principle; a man who loved his God, his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; a man who loved his family and adored his wife more than he could express.

I happened to have the privilege of spending some of his last few precious days with him. He went downhill pretty fast. He struggled for each breath and we had to keep him doped up on pain meds just to keep him comfortable. It was the most difficult thing I have ever witnessed in my entire life! I shed many silent tears, expressed innumerable words of love and appreciation and I often just sat in silence absorbing the pure goodness of his spirit. I will ALWAYS treasure that sweet time we were afforded together.

My dad and I had great times together. He was one of the funniest people I have ever known and he was a blast to be around. We often golfed together. In fact, we used to golf 3 times a week. On the course, we would talk about life. Don't get me wrong, we laughed a lot, but we also had some of our best talks on the golf course. I always kept score for both of us. As I would inevitably lose my ball in the drink or in the rough, I would be counting up my strokes, including the penalty stroke, and he would say, "Oh babe, don't take a penalty...losing your ball was penalty enough!". Then he would go on to say, "Just count the good strokes, the bad ones just mess with your head and mess up the rest of your game!" and sometimes he would simply say, "Let's enjoy the game and NOT keep score today." (He was the sweetest cheater I ever knew...he always cheated in MY favor!)

As I have traveled through life, I have come to really appreciate the wisdom in what seemed to be simply a friendly game of golf. How many times do we focus on the negative or bad things that have happened to us and forget to celebrate the good? Focusing on the "bad strokes" tends to throw us off a rhythm and oft times throws us into a tailspin, leading to possible self-destruction...I tend to beat myself up over my mistakes and forget that I am deserving of my own forgiveness.

So to my precious and ever wise father, I say this; Thank you for reminding me that I have worth and that I am deserving of all the good things in life. I will always remember you and take great joy and comfort in knowing that I had the best father I could have ever imagined!