Dear Dad

I remember the way it felt to cuddle with you on the couch...You, watching Chuck Norris kick some butt...I, listening to your strong and steady heart beat... always wondering if our hearts looked as similar as our eyes did...

Grapefruits for breakfast still make me smile. In one of your sober periods, You would buy Eli and I organic cereal, and would always give us 1/2 of a grapefruit. The taste was like magic in my mouth. For, I never understood how that beautiful pink fruit always tasted sweeter when you made it for me...it took many years to pass before I realized you sprinkled some sugar on top.

During this sober period, Mom let you have us for Christmas. You decorated your apartment with a mini Christmas tree, twinkling lights, candy canes and a few presents by the tree. Standing in the living room, you turned and looked down at me. As our eyes met, I realized just how nervous you were. You looked back at me and blurted " I am sorry, I'm really not used to this, so please bare with me." I immediately smiled...we both knew that I read right through you. I think it had something to do with our matching eyes... eyes that gave me the ability to see into your confused heart...
Dad, I do not think you know how proud I was of you at that moment. You were honest with me, and you were raw...acting on pure love. I spent the rest of Christmas, and beyond thinking about what you said, and thinking about the expression you shared with me through your eyes...thinking about parenthood, life, and the complexities of our human existance. That year, you gave me a boombox and a Toad The Wet Sprocket CD...my second grade heart felt like it was about to burst with love...not for the gifts (that I did love), but because of you...the beauty of you in a natural state...That Christmas morning was one of my absolute favorite days I have had on this Earth. Mom came over in her forest green track suit, and we spent hours together. I turned on music from my new gift, and we danced together, while Eli and Mom sat on the couch cracking up at our fabulous moves. Remember you bought that Polaroid camera, and Mom tried hiding every time you pulled it out!...(I did the exact opposite of course).

What's left from Christmas at your apartment? A very happy memory, and that Polaroid camera I love so very much. Maybe its true that we have had more hardship than happiness..but the quality of those good times out weight the quantity of the bad.

Thank you for your love...thank you for my life...for our matching eyes... our matching dance moves, and our matching hearts...you may be gone from this earth, but you are always pumping through me... helping create the rhythm I dance to in life.

Your Blue Eyed Girl,

Julianna Marie (Sneakypete) Corbett