Back in the Woods

Every time I hear the song "The Box" by Randy Travis (click to watch the video), I think of my dad. One year for Christmas, he gave my sister, my brother and myself a cherry box with a hinged lid for Christmas. Mine has turned into a junk box which I never intended. It has some pieces of costume jewelry, a few pictures, the extra buttons you get when you buy new clothes, an old prescription bottle, and other trinkets. Nothing of any real value is kept in it. I need to change that. Not that I am going to keep valuables in it, but there are some special things I should probably put inside so that my children can enjoy looking through it someday.

I am very thankful that it was not stolen when my jewelry box was stolen last year because this box is very special. First because my dad gave it to me as a gift and secondly because he signed his name on the inside of it. My dad is almost ten years older than my mom and he had a stroke in his early 50s. We have been blessed that he is still with us and did not sustain any major brain damage as the result of the stroke. Several of my friends have lost their father's over the past few years and I think often how blessed I am to still have him in my life.

You've heard of men of few words? I wouldn't describe my dad as a man of few words - he talks alot! Sometimes he goes on with so much foolishness that it drives me crazy! My dad has worked hard all of his life, especially when we were little and when he came in for the night, he ate dinner and then laid in his recliner and watched tv until bedtime. We joke about being his remote control before remote controls were invented. We also remember getting into a lot of trouble if we happened to be playing in front of the tv while he was trying to watch it.

Every now and then I like to recall some memories that I have of my parents when I was little. Not the ones you have in pictures, but the real memories, the ones you have of stuff they said or did that you never want to forget. Here are a few memories of my dad and I am so happy there will be more!

• I remember when my dad was in a really good mood and probably when I was being a really sweet, good little girl, he would call me "Sweetcake".
• I remember riding on a tractor with him one time when I was probably no more than 7 and he put his arm around me and gave me a hug and told me that he "loved his little farm girl"
• I remember getting up at 6:00 on Saturday mornings, just him and me, and drinking coffee together. He would mix mine, half coffee, half milk and two teaspoons of sugar and we would watch The Lone Ranger together :-)
• I remember him making me drive in REVERSE out in the field until my neck hurt, calling out LEFT, RIGHT, NO! THE OTHER WAY before he ever let me put the car in DRIVE to go forward. His reasoning was "if you can drive backwards and know which way to turn the wheel, you can drive forward with narry a problem."
  
• I remember him letting me drive on the back country roads long before I turned 16 and having to grab the wheel to keep me from hitting a concrete bridge in a curve on Sugar Creek Road. (I guess maybe I should have driven backwards a little longer :-))
  
• I remember when I started dating, he told me one time "I've barely ever laid a hand on you and you better never let any man hurt you."
  
• I remember him taking me out for breakfast the morning I got married.
• I remember when I was on bedrest with Kensley, stressing over money, he brought me the money to get the oak rocking chair I had been paying on out of layaway. He said he didn't want the money back, he just wanted to make sure that the baby knew that was HER rocking chair and that it would be given to her one day.
• The most recent thing that is etched into my memory is the day he said "I want you to hire the meanest damn lawyer you can find and I'll pay for him!" (I did hire a mean one but Wasband and I worked most everything out and he didn't have to pay too much :-)
  

I think in just these few things I've listed, you will see a Daddy who loves his baby girl, who has spent some quality time with her over the years and made some wonderful memories, who cared about her safety and watched over her, who taught her that real men would never abuse (and for the record the one I had never did), who has helped out financially in some tough times, and who was hurt beyond measure when he saw his baby girl was hurting.

The feelings I have for my dad and what a good man he is played a role in my decision to take back my maiden name. When I first divorced, it never occurred to me to change my name. I had been an Underwood longer than I was ever a Woods. I made the decision to change it approximately 7 months later. You can look through my old posts to see what might have precipitated my wanting to change it. It was not an easy decision given the fact everyone identified me as Dana Underwood and it was the last name of my three children. My decision to change came down to this:

MY DADDY is the only man who has never hurt me and I am proud to carry his last name. I can tell you that I might not be so quick to give up that last name should there be a next time. I'm thinking a hyphenation might be in my future. For now, I am enjoying being back in the Woods (where I came from).

P.S. To those of you who have my number programmed in your cell phone, please do NOT pass GO, do NOT collect $200, and change my last name. I now prefer to be listed under the W's.