A Cup of Joe.

Everyone else called him Joe but I called him Dad.

I will be spilling a little piece of my heart out with these words because there is simply no other way to tell you about him without opening and sharing my heart with you.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I would not be where I am today if a complete stranger didn’t come into my life when I was two years old. The love I learned and received from him always has been and always will be everything.

Life before Dad was pretty scary.

We lived in a neighborhood most people wouldn’t even drive through and gun shots didn’t phase any of us. The house was not clean - in fact it was just unacceptable. My aunt, uncle, and cousins lived a few blocks away so when my mother worked my aunt watched us and when my aunt worked my mother watched us. They called us the goof troop. The neighbor upstairs had a son named Seesaw - He died when I was in PreK. We didn’t have money or much of anything, but we did have imaginations. Our idea of fun was digging in the dirt with spoons. I had outrageously curly brown hair and tried to wear the same polka dot dress every single day. It was just my mother, my older sister, one dog, one cat, and I. The aunt and uncle I just mentioned - My uncle is my mother’s biological brother - his wife (my aunt) is my Dads biological sister. Confusing I know but this is how my mother met my Dad. Dad helped mom get the house cleaned up and they dated for a while. One day stray bullets sprayed the front of our house. When my Dad noticed the bullet hole in the front door, he moved us out that day and into his home.

For clarification purposes, I grew up with two Dads and a Mom (Some people don’t even have one, but I hit the jackpot with two. My Biological Father is still here. My Dad Joe got called home in 2020)

I have been blankly starring at this screen trying to figure out how to tell you about my Dad but not a single word will do him justice. There are no words in the English language that I can string together to help you understand such a wonderful soul and all the love he shared.

Life after Dad is pretty Scary too.

I need to go for a walk – I will come back and continue later.

5/11/2023 11:00 am

5/11/23 1300 -

I think this will be an ongoing thread - A Cup of Joe - I hope you get to know and love Dad with me as we talk about him together here.

Today’s TLJ - I stopped at Walgreen’s to get Advil for my toothache and found one of my favorite candles and grabbed it. I Love candles and cozy things. Certain candles I light just for me and others I call "company candles" - My brain has accepted this so much so that when I walked in the house after work a few weeks ago and seen one of the "company candles" lit I asked my sister who was coming over lol --- I explained why I thought someone was coming over and she calls them company candles now too. (a win is a win)