Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.

On Sunday, May 10, 2009 my father died. He was 85 years old.

How do you summarize a person’s life? My Dad was on this planet for 85 years. He was a drummer, a photographer, and a business owner. He has held all those jobs and more as well, but to me he was just Daddy and, like most little girls, I thought that my Daddy was the strongest, the handsomest, and the smartest man alive.

In many of my earliest memories of my father, he had a camera in his hands. Mom and I were his favorite subjects. When I was a little girl, I loved having my picture taken. As soon as the camera came out, I began to pose and he was happy to snap shot after shot.

Not only did her take the pictures, he developed them in his home dark room. I will never forget the excitement of watching the image appear on a print that we had exposed and then bathed in chemicals. I remember dancing from one foot to the other as the picture gradually darkened on the paper, holding my breath, hoping that Dad would let me take the picture and plunge it into fresh water before turning on the light to examine the results.

For much of my childhood, Dad worked a long distance from home, first at West Point and then in New York City.

He left the house early in the morning and didn’t get home until late at night, often after I was in bed. When he was home, however, he always made the time we spent together special. Whether I needed help with a diorama for the Science Fair or a presentation for a Video course I was taking on how to produce a training video, Dad was there.
Dad had advice for every aspect of my life. I still remember the day he told me “If a man takes you out for dinner at a restaurant and there’s not a mushroom cap on the filet mignon, dump the guy.” Ok, so I didn’t always follow Dad’s advice but I always listened.

My father had so many wonderful qualities. He was a kind, generous, and caring man. When I had the measles and didn’t feel like eating, he found at least six different ways to serve up oranges in an attempt to get me to eat something. He was strong. When I foolishly stepped on a sewing needle and only the tiniest bit of the tip was left sticking out, he was strong enough to grab it and pull it from my foot with his bare hands. Yet this same tower of strength broke down and cried over the death of our family dog.

I think perhaps the most important lesson I learned from my father is that you have to find something to do that makes you happy and then go for it. At an age when most people are thinking of retiring, he went out on his own and started Graphics and then took over ownership of The Little Paper.

Together he and my mother built a business that has withstood the test of time, a business that is strong enough to continue without him.

When I was about six or seven, Dad brought home a bright red bicycle. Over the course of a long afternoon, he taught me to ride it. At first, he ran alongside me, holding the bike upright so that I wouldn’t fall. Once I began to have some confidence, he moved to a position behind the bicycle, still running along behind, holding me upright until he sensed (I’m not sure exactly how) that I was ready and then, quietly, without saying a word, he allowed me to ride off on my own.

Just as he did on that day, we now have to let go and allow him to leave us here as he moves off into the distance on his own. We will always miss him but he will never be completely gone as long as we hold these wonderful memories of him in our hearts.