October 8 will never be the same...

Today is a hard day. It's my dad's birthday. Our first one without him. I've been okay today, but sad. My stepmom, Gail, and my sisters, Paige and Corri were going out to the cemetery to put flowers on his grave site. I wish I could be with them. I got an e-mail this morning from my dad's best friend since about the second grade. Martin said he and Daddy always called each other on their birthdays, so he e-mailed me instead. It's just one of the many firsts for those who miss Dad.

Another hard one will come next week. My dad and his business partner have been hosting a golf tournament in Dallas for the past several year for cancer research. It's next Friday. This year and from now on it will be called the Mike Abbott Memorial Golf Tournament. That's still hard to see in print. It's really a three day event with several concerts in conjunction with the tournament.

My dad loved country music and he loved songwriters. So songwriters will be performing. I'll tell you more about them later, but one is Allen Shamblin. He has played at several of the previous years and he honored my dad by singing the music at Dad's funeral. One of the songs he sang was "Flies On the Butter". Wynonna Judd recorded it (and you may be listening to it now along with some of the other songs Allen wrote), but hers doesn't hold a candle to Allen's version. Anytime I'm missing Daddy, I play his version of it. I would love to put it on the blog, but I can figure out how to load an audio file I have. If I figure it out, I will. Allen also wrote songs like Life's
Anyway, I was in my church library tonight returning a Veggie Tale DVD and talking to a friend of mine who's father died two weeks and 1 day after mine. As I was leaving a book on display caught my eye. Flies on the Butter by Denise Hildreth. Needless to say, I'm going to start reading it. It is inspired by Allen's song. She heard Wynonna sing it on the radio, pulled her car over and cried. She really would have cried if she had heard Allen sing. His voice is like a warm quilt wrapping you up in memories. It really is a beautiful song.

I wish I could talk to my dad today and tell him I miss him. I hope he can hear me when I say, "Happy Birthday, Daddy."