Happy Birthday dad...

Today my dad, Praxedis Sotelo Zuniga, would have been 88 years old.  He's been gone 9 years now.  I can't believe it's been that long.  I miss him... 

When I woke up this morning, I was feeling a little blue.  The biggest event of my year was this past weekend and it was thankfully, a big success.  I took Sunday to recoup and do practically nothing and then worked on event wrap-up part of the today.  I thought I would take part of the day and spend with my mother but she had already made plans so I didn't push.  But after that conversation with her, I noticed a sadness coming over me.  I had already been crying this morning.  It was weird...I created a photo video for a friend of her birthday celebration last week where she honored her cancer doctors and raised a ton of money for cancer research.  I posted it on facebook last night and had a watched it several times until I got it just the way I wanted it.  So, it's not like I hadn't seen it!  But when I watched it and read all the comments, I tears started to fall...

Shortly after, I made my way to the memorial gardens where dad is.  I took my camera to take pictures of the grounds since it's been a while since I was there.  There were old plastic flowers by the "boulder" - as we call it - where dad's cremains are, and I pulled out then out and discarded them.  I left the plastic cone that held the flowers and filled it with fallen leaves so it wouldn't look odd.  On the way to the gardens, I stopped to buy a Virgen de Guadalupe candle to place next to the boulder.  When I was cleaning up around the boulder there was a naturally made cross that was on the rock.  I don't know how it got there - who left it - but I moved it over on top of dad's name plate. 

Then I had a little chat with dad.  I wish he had lived long enough to see the first Fiesta event in 2003.  I always wonder what he would have thought about it.  I would have liked to have seen him walk around and experience the event.  In his heyday, when he took photos, I wonder what he would have captured about the event - what he would have focused on and how many pictures he would have taken.  I'm sure I would have given him a run for his money on that one!  But really...he had such an eye for detail and beauty in his photos so I would have enjoyed seeing the event through his eyes.

I left after a short chat with dad and I was crying again.  But I was remembering some of the funny things about dad - things that he would say - "dadism" if you will and I was laughing too. 

I miss you dad...