I Met You Over Pizza And You Stayed Til The End

It's been 12 years since I've hugged my dad. So, this challenge is a great way to honor him, and even though I might get close, I'll not be able to do him justice.

It was the summer of 1981 when I met my dad. I was 9 when we met. My mom had a date, and my brother and I were supposed to stay with a sitter. When that didn't work out, he decided we should come along.

We went to a place called Pizza House and enjoyed pizza and sodas. He and my mother carried on about whatever it was adults talked about in 1981. Jim, as we were introduced, asked if we wanted to go to a carnival. Of course, we did. We were 9 and 7 so this was all new and especially exciting.

It didn't take long for my dad to be around all the time. He and my mom hit it off and he was really cool to us kids. Sure, there were some hiccups along the way that first few months. It didn't take long before he and my mom talked about getting married. That leads to awkward family meetings. It's a fond memory.

He wanted to introduce everybody to his mom and her husband. So he made plans to take everyone to dinner and a movie. Looking back on it, he must have felt like it was the worst call in the world to make. Introducing his new girlfriend whom he was thinking about moving in with, and marrying, and her kids, to his parents was a big step.

Dinner went alright. The adults did most of the talking and us kids ate and went to play video games in the playroom at the restaurant. Back then, standing arcade games were spreading pretty quickly, and all the local businesses had them. Everything sounds great, and it was, but then came the movie.

We went to see the 1981 Tarzan the Ape Man at the West Cinema. This is where one of his most embarrassing moments happened. If you haven't seen the movie, historically, it was not a family flick version of Tarzan like the ones dad grew up watching. This is the one where Bo Derek spent a good portion of the movie, from basically the opening credit scenes, naked. Oops, and thanks again pops. I think this is where my love of blondes started.

Mom forgave him and they married in December of that year. It was official, he was my dad.

Dad, if you look it up, is a word that covers all the different roles of a male parental figure. It doesn't matter if they were there the day you were made. They'll be the ones that are there, day in and day out, rooting you on, telling you that you can do it. Whether they're the picture-perfect dad, or a flawed and imperfect dad doing the best that they can, they're the hero of your story growing up. At least that is how I learned to define what a dad was.

My dad wasn't perfect. He was the third in a lineage of imperfect fathers. To say that we didn't always match up is a bit of an understatement. Could I have had a dad that tried harder? Absolutely not.

By the time I was eleven, dad was on disability stemming from problems related to Vietnam. I was a fortunate kid. Not only was my dad free to always be there for band concerts, and band competitions, and when I marched in parade after parade. He was also there for every accident, every broken bone, every new and crazy thing I wanted to try.

The list of professional wrestlers I got to see up close and personal with my dad covers nearly the entire 80s and 90s roster of wrestlers currently in the hall of fame. We barely ever missed a show if it was in driving distance.

From Hulk Hogan to the Macho Man, The Undertaker to Andre The Giant, from Bret Hart to Shawn Michaels with Marty Janetty and everyone in between. We saw them all together.

My dad wasn't a hunter, or a lover of fishing, or the great outdoors. He loved wrestling, electronics, and his family. I remember getting to meet Jake The Snake Roberts with my dad. And my dad dared me to have my picture taken with Jake while he had Damien out of the bag. Fortunately, I didn't pee myself at 14.

One of the things that my dad imparted to me was that you don't give up on people you care about. He proved it wasn't just words when I was in my middle teens. After giving me everything in the world a kid really needed, and only asking for me to be a good kid, I disappointed him one year and ran afoul of the law.

He was the first one on my side when it came time to pay for that night, and never held it against me. In a lot of ways, my dad is the dad I am today. He taught me that being a parent doesn't end. It's a lifelong role.

My dad was there when I got divorced. He checked on me every day. He would even come over and make sure in the pits of my depression that I was keeping up on things like chores, cleaning, and taking care of myself. He was more than just a dad or a father, he was a good friend.

Later on in his life, he showed a resolve that I'd never seen. In 2010, on what would have been the day we celebrated my 38th birthday, he started his final journey as my dad when the doctors told him he had less than two months.

Never count out an old soldier. They'll prove they've got more in the tank than the average person 9 out of 10 times. Even if they've never shown it until then. My mom had been gone for a couple of years. Taken by a stroke, like her father before her. So we worried dad might be ready to go like some elder survivors are.

We got him out of the hospital, and he got to convalesce at home with a little help. The cancer had caused some issues that he needed surgery on. Then came the work to get back on his feet. Maybe it's how it always works, or maybe it was the hero inside him. I prefer to think of it as the latter.

Dad got on his feet a few weeks after surgery, and in that time we had before May of 2010, he did more living than the doctors gave him credit for. Chemo was harsh, but it didn't stop him. We hit movies, we hit the casinos, and we ate everything in sight. We laughed, we laughed some more, and we didn't miss a minute that we could have in that time.

My dad's proudest moments of his life were serving in the Army and spending time in Hawaii, seeing his kids grow up and start to become good men, knowing his grandson as much as my grandfather knew me, and taking his grandson and sons to one last wrestling night.

Like most great men he passed too soon and missed out on only one final goal. He pushed himself as hard as he could to make it to his grandson's graduation, and months into a fight with cancer that doctors expected would be weeks, was less than 20 days away when his story ended.

In his story as my dad, he may not have been there in the beginning, but I'll miss him until my ending and then some.