Happy Father's Day

This is going to be a very hard day for us, this second Father's Day without him. Here's to Leap, the love of my life, Anthony's father. His name is Howard, but he got this nickname playing baseball in high school and it stuck throughout his entire short life. There were lots of his close friends that never actually knew his real name; that always cracked us up! From now on I won't ever refer to him as Anthony's father, I'll just say Leap and there will no longer be a mystery about him. Every now and then I may refer to Anthony as Howard Jr., he's so much like his father.

I have a ton of pictures of him, but the more recent ones show him in illness and that's just not how I remember him. So if I'm going to put a picture out here for my friends to see, I prefer to use one that shows how I remember him. This one was taken before Anthony was born, Tiffany is actually in the original picture, but I cropped her out. Leap was still married to my ex-wife at the time. Tiffany was probably 4 or 5 in this picture. My calculations tell me that only a year after this photo was taken, we were together again. We actually lived together for a year when Jeremy, the oldest was a baby, split up, Leap got married, had 3 kids, Tiffany, Kelly, and Dustin. When Dustin was two in 1988 is when we got back together. I became step mom to those 4 kids. I loved them like they were my own, treated them as such, and still do to this day.

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In a way I guess, I am now mother and father to these kids. Funny that even after Leap and I split up, the 4 that weren't mine would still come to me to get what they wanted from their father. I was the only one that he would listen to when it came to the kids. Jeremy's mom and also my ex-wife knew this and would also use me as their go between. He and I were always joined at the heart. It's fitting that Anthony and I were the only ones present for his death. I can't say enough how much comfort I get from that. I was where I was meant to be on that horrible day. I know Leap got comfort from that as well.




Above is a picture of my father. I believe that is me that he's holding. There is no date on the photo, it could possibly be my sister. I think it's me so I'm going with it. He died when I was 8, so I only have a few memories. I think about how things would have been had he lived. I always say Anthony looks like Leap, but I guess when you look at this picture and see the pictures of Anthony with his hair short, he looks like my father.

Ok, I'm done being sad, this has kind of been difficult to write. I'll be checking in with my "steps" today to see how they are. Tiffany calls all the time, the others are not so good at it. The last time I spoke to the other 3 was at Austin's birthday party. It's only been a couple of weeks, but they are always in my thoughts, so it's time for "mom" to check in.

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Shelby is getting better at detecting the pills in the peanut butter sandwiches I've been giving her. Today she flat out refused to eat it, so I had to get creative. I made her a Fried Rice with Chicken and Egg Roll tv dinner and stirred in the un-eaten peanut butter sandwich. It may sound extreme, but it was a tv dinner that Anthony refused to eat. Worked out great for me, I didn't have to throw the unwanted dinner away and Shelby ate her pills. Now I just have to think how I will trick her tonight!