Every time we loose a loved one, pieces of our heart are sent to heaven. 

 

Today my post is not camping, cooking or travel related but it is a day that can’t go by unmarked. It is hard for me to believe our Pap has been gone for 17 years today.

He was only mine for 3 years, but impacted my life and packed our short time together with love. First time I met this towering man who called himself “the last real cowboy” he told me he loved me. The second time he nicknamed me “Tatercakes”.

Then came the day I told him I was giving him a grand child. He smiled with a tear in his eye and told me he would be a Great Pap. He would have been.. but 17 days later he was gone. Just days before at our 4th of July fireworks he stood beside me watching colors explode and proclaimed “It’s a girl and she will be like her GREAT Pap. She will love horses and dogs.” And … she does.

He never met Hannah either, but he would have loved her just as much. She is also like her Great Pap. She is smart, stubborn, strong willed and un-apologetically honest. I know in my heart he knows that now also.

The night we buried him. I sat in his living room too emotional to sleep. I stared at his empty recliner. I was heart broken, the last cowboy was gone. That chair brought me so much comfort the next 33 weeks. It smelled of his English Leather Cologne and always felt like it hugged me when I sat down.

You can’t put a timetable on grief, but for me…. the first time I could think of him and not cry was my turning point. That moment came 2 weeks after Madison was born, I sat in that chair with her in my arms and I could his voice say… “Tatercakes, I was right… a girl.”

 

My Pap – Gilbert Dale Lynch – May 10, 1934 – July 9, 2002.