Daddy's Girls

Daddy's Girls

Edited the next day.... it's amazing what you find out about your own life when you start sharing it with others! After I posted the story about this box yesterday, Zoe visited and told me I had it wrong! All of these years, I'd remembered it differently. Thanks Zoe-- hope this version is better. :-)

As their tenth wedding anniversary approached, Zoe realized my Dad was saving up to buy her a gift and guessed it must have been jewelry. She suggested instead that he choose a gift they could enjoy together. We'd always been a 'fishing, boating, camping at the lake' kind of family, but the boat they had at the time was too small to handle Lake Michigan. (Where all the good salmon are, after all...) So, instead of an anniversary ring they settled on a bigger boat! Naturally she was christened Zoe's Diamond. :-) Over the years it became 'the Diamond' in our minds, and remains to this day. She was a deep-V hull to withstand the pounding and took us for many a fishing trip. We loved that boat, even though it made Dad cuss under his breath every single time we took it out because something ALWAYS failed to work right.

We lost him to cancer in August, two years ago, and Zoe decided the following spring to pass along the Diamond to Uncle Dave. The whole family took her out for a final voyage... naturally, something went wrong just like it always did!! But we posed for one last picture with Zoe, Uncle Dave, Paula and I. On that clear, beautiful day at the park we celebrated all the times, good and bad, that we'd had on the Diamond with our Daddy. My sister Paula and I are Daddy's Girls...the first box we planted together on a day we won't ever forget and that became a the passing of an era in our lives.

Dad, and the Diamond, are gone now. There is an old legend that I often talk about when I have the heartache of speaking at funeral. It says that a man actually dies three times. The first time is when his earthly body ceases to function. The second, when his friends, family, and loved ones gather to mourn his passing. But the THIRD...well, that happens when eventually his name is spoken for the very last time. In this way, it is said, a good and loving man lives on forever, and a corrupt and evil man dies quickly and is gone forever.

This box is my way of keeping Dad's name alive. It is still in the wild, my oldest surviving box to date. I drive by there every day on my way to and from work, and it gives me peace to think that it's sleeping safely there. I remember my Daddy, Frank Kolar III, and his beloved Zoe's Diamond on a daily basis. If you go there remember those you have lost in your own life for a moment and keep them alive forever in your heart.