Long before Daddy left us, I started making efforts to savor my moments with him. We lived so far apart, and our in-person visits were too few. For several years, each time I left him I’d pause to memorize his face, his smell, all of it. I was so afraid that each time I saw him might be my last. The first time I remember doing this was the day he left me at the Orlando airport to move to Switzerland. The photo attached here was taken just after I returned…and I was lucky to have had several more opportunities that followed this one.

Memorizing someone’s face is easy, especially when it belongs to someone you love, but a voice is a different animal. Each year on my birthday, my parents would call and sing to me. I’m lucky to have saved a few songs as voice-mails, because now each year I long for the call that won’t come. (If you are someone who leaves me messages and wonders why I never call you back, this is why. My system forces me to listen to all of my saved messages and re-save them once a week before I can hear the new ones. I just can’t bring myself to do it.)

Well, today is my birthday, so I’m going to share one of my prized possessions with you…Daddy’s voice. If you listen to it you’ll hear him use my childhood nickname – one that is reserved for use by a very select few. As a kid I hated it, but I’d give anything right now to hear him call me “Beaner”.