If cancer had not done the very thing it appears to be so effective at doing, my father would be turning 75 this week.
He passed at 59, a mere nine months after he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
As each year ticks along, it’s not only the man that we miss that makes each passing of his birthday so difficult, it’s the life he’s not here to experience with us.
Jackson was only three when Dad passed.
And Sebastian wouldn’t be born for another six years.
He never got to see Marissa and I walk down the aisle.
He’s not here to listen to all of the peaks and valleys of business ownership that my Mom and I each experience.
We just have to keep doing our best to not only remind one another of the lessons he taught to us in the shockingly short time he was here on this earth, but we feel compelled to share those lessons with anyone who will listen: friends, family, children, customers/clients, etc.
One of my many regrets, in those final months of his life is the fact that I didn’t spend as much time as I could have with him until there were only weeks left.
There were times when he would simply be watching TV and I’d be elsewhere, not knowing how to be next to him when he was mostly in pain.
I did the best I could to make up for it towards the end, but you know the games the mind can play when we try to rewrite history.
Often, Sebastian will come up to Marissa and myself when he’s done something that he’s proud of and he’ll ask: How did I do?
And like any loving parent would, we remind him: You did great.
It’s not lost on me that he has a luxury I no longer have, to be able to turn to your father and ask for an extra bit of approval.
And yet, here I am, writing about what could be his 75th birthday, while I am fifty years of age, and I’ll be fifty-one before years end, and all I really want is to have my father here so I can take inventory with him of all the things that are going right and ask:
Dad, how did I do?
Jason Leenaarts 