Missing my dad.*

(Yes. I know how it looks; eulogizing a composer I've never met and not my own father. If laziness is a crime, you best have that electric chair ready.)

How do you...how can you say goodbye to someone you've known your whole life?

Not a few weeks ago, my father's birthday came and went. It felt beyond weird going through the day without seeing him or giving him gifts. He would've been 65 years old.

Towards the end of July, he succumbed to illness. Even now, it's impossible to believe I'll never see him again.

Even now, I sometimes think to myself, 'Dad's been in the hospital a while. I hope he gets out soon.'.

He was a big man with a big voice. I have no problem admitting that, even to the end of his life, I was scared of him. More recently, it was because of his sickness. It was scary to have to face him every day, as much for the illnesses as much as the fact that this man who I'd seen as nearly invincible reduced. This is not to denigrate him; even to the end, he still had a sense of humor and love for his family.

He was very devoted to us; my mother, my sisters and me. We were always taken care of.

I remember when I or my sisters would get out of line. He brought the hammer down, so to speak. It hurt at the time, but looking back, if he wasn't firm with us, I shudder to think how irresponsible and insufferable we'd have turned out to be.

For moments like this, there would also be moments when he come home with some kind of snack, or when he'd take me along on a trip with the kids he mentored, like when I went to a Toronto Raptors game.

Even earlier than that, I remember one day when he took me to the theater. The movie we saw was The Adventures of Milo and Otis. I enjoyed the film and I suppose that I could look at that as one of the moments that inspired me to pursue a career in movies. It may not have been the only one, but it was certainly the first.

I have more memories and feelings about my father than I can possibly express in a blog post. I just hope that one day soon, I can prove myself to be the man he expected me to be; the man he often saw me as.

* - It took all my strength not to use some kind of pop culture reference as a post title. There's a time and place for it and this is neither.