Happy Birthday Dad! This new year means a new number on your calf in your triathlons. This year will be your 4th year anniversary on your job and our 9th year in Utah. It will mark countless races. This year will commemorate your youngest daughter graduating from high school and your oldest daughter having the option to graduate from college in December. This year will mark your 25th anniversary to my beautiful mother. (And a celebratory trip to Italy? :). This is a big year for you.
And I cannot tell you how proud of you I am.
You often tell me how proud of me you are. Every time I hear that, I startle. Proud of me? I have so much to improve on. I could be so much nicer. I could be so much happier. I could be so much more polite at home. I could get better grades or be more mature or be less stressed or I could be.....
And yet, you have the audacity to say that you're proud of me. You have no idea how much that means to me. Even though sometimes all I see are my flaws, you see how much good I am doing and how hard I am trying.
It's easy for me to believe in a loving God, a God who is our Heavenly Father. It is actually one of the things that I have the strongest testimony of, and a big part of that testimony is because how you've treated me. You have given me pure, empirical evidence of a loving father. You have shown through your example of even just a smidgeon of what Heavenly Father is like. Thank you for that.
We have taken two road trips together, just you and me. We have traveled countless miles in your truck. We have had a lot of cookies and a lot of ice cream (After Lent of course...). We have climbed rocks, stared at rocks, and taken pictures of rocks. We have soaked up the sun and just talked. And talked and talked.
I still remember driving home and I sat in the passenger seat just crying...crying...crying. And you told me that when you are sad you notice the good things in life, like rainbows. I thought to myself, rainbows? Really?
It wasn't until August that I really listened and thought, rainbows?
Rainbows. (The rainbows of that Spring Break trip).
Thank you Dad. You have always been a rational ear for me to talk to.
Thank you for going to those countless volleyball tournaments and practices. Those were fun times. Thank you for coming to my track meets. Thank you for running with me. Thank you for letting me have the best bite of your pancakes. Thank you for giving me Priesthood blessings whenever I need and ask for them. Thank you for teaching me to tell them to 'bite me'. Thank you for finding the humor.
I hope you take this birthday as an opportunity to celebrate you! You really are an amazing dad. Thank you for being there.
xo. Elise
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