The Spouse Briefs: Devoted dad left quite a legacy behind

Life doesn't always end the way we want it to. A little over a year ago the man who raised me passed away from melanoma. It was hard to accept watching someone who had always seemed invincible become a shell of who he once was. My father was a born fighter. Many of his childhood memories recall making do with little because of war rationing and poverty. His family never had much money but what they did have was ambition and hard work. Although his parents only attained a third and eighth grade education, all of their children graduated from college. My father attended Texas A&M and then went on to get a law degree at the University of Texas at Austin. After he graduated he joined what was, at the time, a very young Air Force.

Some of my first memories of my dad involved him coming home in his Blues every day from work. My father was a manly man with a stocky build and burly arms. I often thought of him as a big, intimidating teddy bear. He had no sons but instead would often tell people he was perfect in one thing: having all girls, four of them!! I never felt like he was disappointed because he didn't have a boy, in fact he just made us learn a lot of "boy" things. We had to do yard work, help with wood working projects, and take care of the family car. Most of all he wanted each one of his daughters to be college educated. Once, while in high school, I brought home a less-than-stellar report card. I thought long and hard about how to diminish the fallout. Standing in front of my dad I said, "It doesn't matter what grades I get I'm just going to be a stay-at-home mom!!!" He turned an alarming shade of purple, narrowed his eyes and after a deep breath said "You may be a stay-at-home mom someday, but you are going to be a damn college-educated one!" When he said that I knew he meant it, and I knew that I had to live up to his expectations.

I miss my father and his constant concern for the welfare of his wife and children. Sometimes love isn't about saying the exact words, but not giving up on those you love, even when they give up on themselves. At the end of his life he never stopped trying to be there for us, but his body did. What he did leave behind was a legacy of dependability, determination and devotion. I was blessed because I had him as a dad!

Rebecca Adling started life as an Air Force brat and is now enjoying life as a mother raising her own life as a mother raising her own pile of adorable Air Force brats.