Never "Too Gone for too Long" I'd love for you to come back home...

(I've used this picture several times on my blog which proves the point I made in my last post about taking pictures. We gots to take pictures of ourselves people. We just gots ta)

I can't say that I like country music. I try to sometimes but it never lasts very long. But one country artist that I never tire of is Randy Travis and it has much to do with my memories of this daddy person pictured above.

Randy Travis' greatest hits was an album we listened to on our long drive to Idaho together when he dropped me off at college. Some of the songs were the perfect fit for that turbulent yet changing time in my life and my dad cheered me on as I proclaimed my own strength and conviction in the fact that my life thereafter would be different...better. Randy Travis' lyrics made me feel powerful. I imagined myself singing them to the people and situation that weren't working in my life and the thought made me smile.

And the memories that those songs bring to my mind still make me smile today. And while listening to them the other day the strangest thing happened...
Twenty years without him and I still somehow found myself starting toward the phone to call my dad to ask him if he remembered that time. The blizzard, the buffalo stew at a roadside lodge, the laughter and pep talks. I walked toward the phone and paused because...wait...I didn't have a number to call (my dad was gone before cell phones. He never had a cell phone number. Can you imagine) I didn't have a number to call and that reality pressed down on my chest, crushing the breath right out of me.

And then I cried.

And you know, I thank Randy Travis for that too.
Because those tears proved just how important that daddy person pictured above is to me and that he will forever and always be mine.

P.S. If my dad could've had a blog. If only he could have had a blog. Just think of the stories I'd have access too. I guess this little hobby 0'mine is far more important than it appears on the surface. In other words, looks like I ain't goin' nowhere any time soon.
In other words, I'll be back to blab at you some more later.

Happy weekend all...