THE PASSING OF A GENERATION

My Daddy passed away on April 2nd. I knew it was coming, he was ready for it, he was suffering and I hated to see him suffer, but I was still not completely ready for it. I thought I was, but I wasn't.

When we got to the mortuary and they handed me a little black box with his ashes in it, it really struck me...this is all that's left of my daddy's mortal body.

When we went to his room at Penick Village, and I realized that all he had left in this world was in this tiny hospital like room, I wept. He was always such a proud man...to a fault actually....and his possessions meant everything to him. He worked hard to have the best of everything and it showed. He dressed to the nines everytime he left the house or his room, and he took very good care of his things. This comes from being a child of the depression and WW II. It comes from being part of his generation. He was the last of his generation in our family. He was the patriarch of the Aldinger family. He was the last of his brothers, sister, mother and father. He was my daddy, and I miss him.

He was not always an easy man, in fact, to the contrary, he could be down right mean and hurtful at times. I was more afraid of him as a child that I can say, but I always wanted his love and approval so much.

I didn't get that love and approval until these few years when I was able to care for him and get to know him and who he was. What was important to him, besides his possessions. As a child, I always felt like his things and appearances were more important to him that us children were. But in these last years, I was able to get past all that and learn who he was as a man, as a human being, faults, frailties, fears and all.

I learned that love was a difficult thing for him to express openly and often. I learned that even though it was difficult, he did feel the emotion. He felt it deeply for my mother. She was the love of his life. She was his buffer from the world, she was his safety net, his soft place to fall, and don't we all need a soft place to fall? I have my wonderful Dan as my soft place to fall. He is my protector as Mommy was to Daddy. How devastated he was when she passed away. I think he forgot how to live after mom died.

He spent the last several years just waiting to die so he could be with Mom again. He had given up on life and it was so hard to watch him waste away to nothing. I know he is in a much better place now. He is at peace, he is learning about the gospel and preparing for eternity with our Father in Heaven.

I miss my daddy, I miss him so much it is a physical pain, just when we finally became close and had the father daughter relationship I always longed for, he is gone. I am grateful for the years we did have, but the selfish side of me wishes we'd had lots more.

Daddy....