Thank You Dad

s Hi Dad. I just wanted to write you a little note to thank you for all the things you have done for me over the years, but I realized if I did that it would be a whole book. I hope you don’t mind then if I just hit the highlights.

Thanks Dad for having the good sense to marry Mom all those years ago. You couldn’t have chosen a better wife or mother for all of us. Thanks Dad for not stopping at two sons or else I wouldn’t be here today. Thanks Dad for that stack of books you kept in the corner of the living room. It got me reading early and I haven’t stopped since. Thanks for taking me to church when I didn’t want to go and making me work in the garden when I would have rather been riding my bike. Both made me a better person. Thanks for everyone of those homemade, Italian dinners over the years. They were food for both the stomach and the soul. Thanks for all those bags of groceries you brought me that got me through college. Thanks too for always bringing my old, dead cars back to life with your miracle mechanic work. You kept me driving instead of walking.

Thanks Dad for always encouraging me and supporting my choices even when I made the wrong ones. Thanks for always being there to talk to when I had problems and pain. You helped me through a lot more than you know over the years. Thanks for being such a great dad to all your sons and such a loving grandfather to all of your grandchildren.

Thanks so much Dad for being there through laughter and tears, triumph and tragedy, love and loss, happiness and heartbreak. I am so happy that you were my Dad. You taught me how to always be there for my own children. You showed me how to be a good man. You helped me to find my way through life and back to love, joy, and God. Happy Father’s Day Dad. I hope that we share many more of them together. I love you.

~ Joseph J. Mazzella ~

[ by: Joseph J. Mazzella Copyright © 2010 (joecool@wirefire.com) -- submitted by: Joseph Mazzella ]