And they're off...

I was in the third grade and I had a bad case of strep throat.


Funny that I remember that.


Actually more important than my grade or my throat is that it's the day that my daddy and I began a tradition.


We watched the Kentucky Derby.


From that day to this - every year on the first Saturday in May - that tradition has continued.


Oh - we didn't always watch it together.


We just both watched it...for seventeen years I watched in in another city; another state. But in 1983 we started watching it together again and we continued that until his death in 2009.


One year I even lived in Louisville.  Renee remembers going to a parade that week and I remember I thought it was so interesting that there were other races going on that day.  Who knew?  Everything in Louisville, Kentucky during that week that ends with the first Saturday in May is about those horses.


Betting on the horses had nothing to do with it. 


"It's the hats", my mother would say - although she loved the shiny sleek horses.


"No it's the color", daddy would say.  He loved the commentary.


And for me, it was "the tradition".


And now it is another first Saturday in May.  I've gotten used to watching without daddy here.


Sort of.


This week my sister, Cindy, asked if the pain of losing her precious granddaughter would ever go away.  I loved my sister in law, Tammie's response, "no, but the big crack will seal some".


For me - some of the pain of losing our daddy - is lessened a little anyway when I do things that we used to do together.


Which is why this afternoon between 5:30 and 6:15 or so -- I'll be watching and listening to hear...


"And they're off . . .".