Happiness.

Hearing my father belly laugh for the first time in years. He looks at me, as we are waiting in the doctor's office, all serious - "Say-ruh, Ahm sorry, but Ah think Ah have to fart." I cracked up and he cracked up and I told him just to let it rip then. Told him at least he wasn't so deaf he couldn't hear that. He laughed until tears came down his cheeks.

In the car he told me he was happy that "I was there to take care of everything" and thanked me.

Yeah, this is why I do it. Even though he can be a huge pain in the ass, he can be stubborn, and selfish, and totally demanding... but he is my blood. I have a very small family. And its moments like this, when he's "on" that I'm so thankful to spend the last few years of my daddy's life with him.

It heals so much of that wounded, abandoned child left in me. Every time I reach out to him when its hard, it breaches a little of that gap that grew when he left. And now my hand is the strong one. And I have forgiven him.

We almost got sideswiped by a semi on the way home. It was a close call. After it was apparent we were safe he looks at me and wryly says with that mischevious twinkle in his eye, "Oh man, if we woulda been mashed up, Ah want you to just take me to the side of the road and shoot me...Ahm done being patched up." And I looked at him, trying to guage his seriousness, and he cracked up again and patted my knee.

Yup, he's doing better. :)