My Dad, My Hero

Author, Eckhart Tolle, writes of the search for wholeness, a sense of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole, in which we strive after possessions, money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship to feel better about ourselves and to feel complete. Only to realize, after attaining all these things, we find the hole is still there, that it is bottomless. He believes the secret of life is to "die before you die" - and find that there is no death. Thus, in many ways is true, because to live in the hearts of others is not to die, and as Chuck Palahniuk once wrote, "the goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

My father was not only a hero to my family and me, but to the country he so proudly protected. I spent all my time waiting for him, and to this day, I still am. This year, marks seven years since his passing, in which five I have been spent searching for the piece of me he took with him. No matter where I looked, I could never find his love. That is, until I looked in the mirror, and began or learned to love myself. "Yeah I'm real good under pressure, being all that I can be. And I can't call in sick on Mondays when the weekend's been too strong. I just work straight through the holidays, and sometimes all night long. You can bet that I stand ready, when the wolf growls at the door. Hey I'm solid, hey I'm steady, hey I'm true down to the core." I too, am an American Soldier.