Happy 80th Birthday to my blessed Daddy!

Today, you would have been celebrating your 80th Birthday. I am so sorry you are not on this earthly plane, to touch my hand, again.

The love you gave ... within my happiest heart, i save.

You passed away, at the tender age of 63.

FOREVER, YOU SHALL LIVE - THANKS TO THE ETERNAL GIFTS YOU GAVE UNTO ME!

Thank you, Frank Edward William Marion - formerly: Herbert Walter Richens; before you ran away at the tenderest age of 14, in your Dads stolen car. Anything to get out of that stuffy  and all too formal private school. All you wanted to do was to be you mom and work in her Chinese restaurant, that she worked so hard and sacrificed to much, to own.

Your Dad used to beat you with a hickory switch that you were told to  choose; ... right off the very tree. And, onto your young backside .. Later, after the birth of your first 2 children, from my mom  - of a party of loving 5, you finally returned to visit your mom, after she had hired a series of detectives to find you, for many misplaced years. Only to later find your own tormented Daddy had blown out his beautiful brains.

What are the earthly gains?

You planted the sweetest and eternally sacred seeds; Katherine, Caroline, Frankie, Jacqueline, and "Baby" Thelma Louise. 

Sadly, on so many counts, my well intentioned Mommy, left you, when I was 13 and our youngest sister, was a mere 5 years young.

Life was never the same.

I am sorry that you came home to an empty home, after working hard all day. No wife. Not a child to be seen. 

Later, you burned all our childhood memories. or gave them away. You were angry and did not understand. Nor, did we.

I want you to know that your beautiful wife did the best that she knew or thought she must do. She did give you warning .. Or, so I was told. I am the only one of the children who was told 'the secret' and for many weeks, had to live with the truth that we were soon to sneak away from you. All because of jealous aunts who really wanted to sleep with you, tainted their stories of who you were and what you did, along with some truths that you never choose to shine a light upon.

Mom often worried that she had done 'the wrong thing.' I bravely assured her that she had done what she needed to do. And, in many ways, this was so very true.

Sometimes, now, as the single mom of a homeschooling teen, I wonder what that 'other life' with a Dad, would have been like ...? I am all too aware that i adjusted a whole lot better to the unwholesome ordeal, than did my younger siblings; some of whom have never really recovered. All i can be, is grateful for the everlasting gifts that I have garnered, in my ever expanding understanding that we all make the most out of what we have ... or not, been given.

I have been given a life out of a movie .. with many sad and sordid sequels, Yet, when I honestly shine a loving light upon the life you barely lived, before you began a  new one ... I can only treasure countless gems; gently being unearthed, with each new breath of consciousness I breathe in ....

All my heart to you, sweetest soul. I only wish that my son, whom you never had the opportunity to meet, will be half as brave, bold and beautiful as the Dad i am looking forward to really getting to know.

I am looking inside, more and more, everyday. And, the further inside ... I dig .. the closer I arrive. 

Of all the courting men, my magical Mother could have married, before your earthly ashes we spread and buried, you were the chosen ONE.

And within me, you shall forever live. 

Upon this written page, let it be known, that of any sins I was unjustly told that you may have committed .. I do forgive.

I am sorry that others held you to blame for unwritten sins done unto their nameless own.

May you forever feel the loving hands, now open .. which before went un-shown.

Sending my happiest heart to you,

Love your eldest daughter- Katherine Anne Ppookie.'