Gifts from my father

In honor of the man that gave me 23 of his chromosomes, I wanted to  tell you about a few things that my father has given be besides life.
1. Sarcasm: I rely on this to get by in a world that is so harsh and often hard to handle on a daily basis. He is by far the most sarcastic person I know and I thank him for passing that on to me, so that I can get a little chuckle from life, when I see a look of confusion on a persons face just after saying something sarcastic. I was told by my dept. chair that I was too sarcastic, and I apologized for it.  I do not feel that I need to walk around with a sign telling people I am being sarcastic towards them. I will never apologize for it ever again!
2. Cough: My father has had this cough since I could remember. I have had this wonderful hacking cough for about five years now. It comes and goes and is just a simple reminder that he gave me his genetic makeup for this cough. Thank you father. I appreciate sounding like an 80 year old man in the mornings. (YES, that is sarcasm!)
3. Strength: I talk about how my mother gives me strength on a regular basis, but over the last year, when it seemed my world was coming to an end, my father simply was there. He would walk me through everything step by step for what I needed to accomplish to get things done. He knows his stuff and I take what he says to heart and follow his instructions to a T. He said once to me over this last year, " I just want you to be happy." That is something I have worked hard for over the last year and hearing him say that helped me realize that he is concerned about me.
4. Silence: My father is a man of few words. No really, he talks all day at work and when he comes home he talks to the dogs and that is about it. When I stay over and get up in the mornings, he tells me to stop talking. I normally don't talk a lot. When I was teaching I was the same way. I would do all my talking for eight hours of the day and when I would get home I did not have much left to say. I would wake up in the mornings and not really talk at all. Since I haven't been teaching, and while my husband was at work, I would have a lot of things to say but no one to tell them to. I find that I have more to say now to people than ever before. But back to this silence thing...I like not talking just like my father. I am content with saying nothing. Some people find that to be passive, but I have learned that you can say so much by being silent. I would rather say nothing than speak meaningless words.
5. Smarts: I am a nerd and I get this from my father. He has two Master's and continually takes classes or teaches classes. I will be the same way. I am working on another degree working my way up towards my Ed.d I get my love of learning from him. When he got me a subscription to the Smithsonian, I was elated. Right now, I have been almost six months without my subscription due to the incompetence of the magazine people and its killing me. My father likes to point out that he has already completed the current month's magazine and that I can not remove them from his house. I steal them if I get the chance.   He instilled in my that "school is your job." I feel that my mother being a teacher and that constant reminder that school is my job, allowed the profession of teaching to pick me.

I could go on and on about my father. He is a funny and I love it when he sends me texts about the crime scene investigations about the things the beagles have eaten or destroyed for that day. He can make me laugh and I know he would do anything for me.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Father's Day.
Be Kind.