Remembering my dad

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What will you remember about your father?I've heard it said that our earliest memory holds the key to the defining issue of our lives -- that it answers the question we long most to resolve.I once told that to someone who said his earliest memory was trying to suck his own toes.I'm not sure what kind of question that answers. I don't even want to think about it.A good memory is like an old, dog-eared book that you read again and again, because the words all fit together just so, and somehow fill you up.My earliest memory is like that. It's my favorite memory for several reasons. One, it's about my dad; two, it's about my tricycle; and three, it never fails to make me happy.Like most things of lasting value, it grows more precious with the passage of time and the wisdom that comes with age.It's been 17 years since my dad took his life.My parents divorced when I was 2. I don't recall much before that. My sister, who remembers more than she should, assures me I am lucky.My first clear memory is this: I was 3 years old, sitting alone on my tricycle on a flagstone patio at the home of my grandparents, where we had gone to live -- my mother, sister and I -- after the divorce.I was wearing a red sweater, corduroy pants and scuffed Mary Janes. My hair was curly, a tangled mess. A breeze kept blowing the curls in my eyes. I pushed them back with my fist.I was staring, as children do, watching leaves on the trees, the way they danced in the light, red and yellow, green and orange, gold and brown.Then I heard footsteps on the walk and looked up to see my daddy, grinning his daddy grin, coming to take me for a visit.In years to come, when my mother would say that my dad walked out on us, I'd close my eyes to remember that day and see him walking toward me with his big arms open wide.I remember other things about him, too. He had lake-blue eyes, the same as my children's; false teeth that he'd clack to make me laugh; and a stubborn streak very much like my own.He was missing the tip of his little finger and would change the story of how he lost it to match anything I did that he wanted me to stop.He bore a scar on his back from shrapnel he caught from the Germans in World War II.He loved fishing, hunting, potato soup, Zane Grey novels, unfiltered Camels and me. If I couldn't sleep, he told me a story; if I wanted to see him, he was there; if I needed cash, he gave it, adding with a wink not to spend it all in one place.I remember the seven years he spent in a veterans hospital learning to walk and talk after surviving a massive stroke.I remember when he left the hospital with his arm in a sling and his speech still slurred, swearing he'd never go back.And I remember the call from my sister years later telling me that he was gone.There are not many of us left to remember him. His parents, his brothers and sisters, all the men he served with and worked with and fished with, have gone on, like him, to their reward.But I still see him clearly in the blue of my children's eyes; in the colors of leaves that dance in the light; and in my own twisted sense of humor.I hear him in the roar of an outboard motor; the jingle of loose change in a pocket; and any male voice singing off-key.I remember him on Father's Day and every day of the year. I have a lifetime savings of hard-earned memories. And I never spend them all in one place.What will you remember about your dad?(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077, or at www.sharonrandall.com.)