A Lixy Life

Ever since the world turn white with snow and frost and all that cold wet-ish winter stuff, Dad has truly been like a big kid in his very own winter wonderland. Dad is an authentic Canadian boy and having a real Canadian winter has that part of him alive and kicking—literally!

In our Gi-normous back yard we have a large swampish area in the trees which makes up the outside of our property, and that has all frozen over nice and solid. Dad got out there with his snow blower as soon as it turned to ice to claim it as his very own skating rink. The next day he was gone working and didn’t get back till late at night. I hear him come in the front door shuffle around a bit and then I hear him walk straight back out the back door. I don’t think anything of it. Even when I start hearing some random war hoops coming from the distant darkness I foolishly don’t connect it with Dad until he walks in through the back door red faced and covered with white….”Uh huh!?” You gotta love that about dad, he’s got energy, enthusiasm and craziness that can put most people to shame and what he does he does with all his heart.

Course something he can’t understand is when others don’t always share that same enthusiasm and it breaks his heart. He’s been trying to get me out on the ice from day one but I’m just not an icy person.

Now something you have to understand about dad is, that no matter what, he is usually, occasionally, mostly, always right. And when he thinks you should do something you probably should but you don’t always want to; when he tells you something is good it probably is but you still might not like it. I’ll give an example that has kind of become a family joke. Dad has excellent taste in wine. He can look at a bottle and make those intellectual, deep sounding grunts and appropriate facial expressions and “wine lingo", and he can daintily swirl the wine in the glass and inhale with the perfect snort, telling you just how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ a wine is—My confession…I like “bad” wine (aka cheap wine). So when dad brings wine home he warns me now “You won’t like this wine, I paid a little extra for it” or “You’ll love this wine tonight, I got the cheap stuff”…har har. So you get the picture, it is the same with skating.

Okay so tonight Dad and Mom took us all you can eat Chinese food (our new years family treat)! So so so so good and bad and bad and good in all those wonderful ways. Completely stuffed, we get home groaning about how “we’re so going to have to work this off” with absolutely no intention of doing anything tonight…except for dad who heads straight to the back door again. Oooooh the words we are all dreading “Come on guys, we need to go for a skate!” I'm getting ready to do battle with dad to yet again to defend my right to NOT do the "good" thing but instead I found myself having to argue with my full tummy which told me "Get out there" and I obeyed. I bundled up in a big fat snowsuit jacket which just happens to be dad's (another thing he had to force me to wear a couple weeks back, which from since I have happily adopted into my don't-wanna-freeze-my-butt-off wardrobe) and stuffed my feet into some skates, nearly slid to my death walking through the snow, and stepped out onto the ice---and I Loved IT!

It was beautiful, the night was perfectly black and the stars perfectly white and the moon just made the ice light up like silver. Gliding along the ice, breathing in the crisp night air, the beauty of God's creation and the love of family...it was heaven. Dad was right, it was GOOD and I could see for a moment why he loves it so much out there.

And then my toes froze and I started feeling like a lollipop so I ran back to safety before it was too late and when dad asked me "So NOW are you going to start coming out here more?!" I had to honestly say "No. But it was perfect for tonight and you WERE right. Thanks Dad." He huffed at me and probably is huffing at me now as he reads this, but I don't mind. He's right and I love my right to be different and we are both stubborn and crazy about each other:)

I love you Daddy. I love the life and brilliance you bring to each day and the way you enjoy life to the full and make sure we always have the opportunity to do the same--even if we don't always take it--and we love you for it. I don't know where we'd be without you. We wouldn't want to be anywhere without you!!