Our Dad WAS Superman!

That is what my sisters and I always believed and still do.

My mom and dad grew up during the depression.  They were high school sweethearts and married shortly after my mother graduated.  This was just two years after my father's graduation.

Before many years had passed they had three little girls.  Life was beginning to be a little easier for them financially but there was a war going on, World War II.

It was during this time that my dad thought about all the young men that were fighting to keep his family safe.  My father enlisted.

Through the years, I have often thought of this when I heard younger people talk about supporting a war or conflict from the safety of their home.

My dad was not going to be drafted.  He was a husband and a father of three.  It was his commitment to his family.

My dad had the good fortune, or misfortune as some thought, to have four daughters.  We felt as though my dad could do anything.  We knew he was Superman.

These are just a few of the things that my dad did.  He could:

1. Change a car's transmission
2. Chage a grandchild's messy diaper
3. Knit mittens for his children
4. Repair a neighbor's furnace
5. Teach his daughters to drive
6. Develop photographs that he took of us when we were little girls
7. Take wonderful care of his mother-in-law as she was dying from cancer.
8. Remodel our home even moving two staircases and he turned an unfinished attic into two bedrooms doing everything himself except for just a wee bit of help from his two older girls
9. Made navy blue suits and rosy pink "toppers" for three of us when we were young so we would have new  Easter outfits to wear to church
10. Spent years working two jobs so my mom could be at home with us
11. Try to teach us that math was fun.  It was to him and I am so happy his "math" gene is present in my three children
12. Read directions and understand them...an ability we do not all share (here I am referring especially to my mom...that explains why my dad did the knitting and made some of our clothes)
13. Grow delicious vegetables

He did all of these things and much, much more.  He did them quietly, without any fanfare.  There were never any photos of him in the newspaper nor any long articles telling the world how much he did for his family.  He did not need that.  He had my mom and his girls and his world was complete.

Whenever I see any of my children exhibit a trait of my dad's, I am thrilled.  I often think that if he could see what wonderful marriages my children have and the type of parents they have become I know how happy he would be for them.  These gifts they also learned from him.

Whenever I see the similarities in my husband to my father, I realize how right he is for me, that he is the one for me.  My dad taught me to appreciate a good man. 

I only hope that others have their own Superman.  My sisters and I had ours.