All the Little Things

Since his passing on Monday, I have known that I would always miss my dad. To me, he was always this big person physically with an even bigger heart and personality. And I thought that I would miss him as a whole, however, I was wrong. It was not the big personality that made him who he was. It was his all of the little things about him that made up that big whole. And now I am starting to realize that it is all the little things that I will miss the most about him.

It s the little things like how he always took mine and mom’s lemons when the server brought them in our drinks after we both had asked for no lemon. The way he could always find a way to make me laugh and calm down when I was angry or upset. The way he would swing a hammer with expert precision, a skill that came from experiencing multiple smashed fingers and thumbs. And the serious look that he would have his face whenever he was thinking about something important.

I will also miss the jokes that we would make about his lack of hair, ok, that was just me making those. I will miss the long talks about football we had that always annoyed mom. The innocent, yet mischievous, look he got on his face when he was planning something ornery. The way he was able to make friends with anyone after speaking to them for just a few moments. The way he could make people laugh at just about anything. And that special smile he had only for me that let me know that he was proud of me.


These are just a few of the things made my dad, the giant of a man that he was. And they are the things that I will miss the least about him. What I will miss the most about him is how, even at the end, he put others before himself. He cared deeply about people, more than he did about himself. That was why he was able to make me laugh when no one else could, and why he could make anyone like him. He wasn’t fake in the way he went about treating people. Everyone had his respect until they proved they didn’t deserve it, and even then, he still treated them with honor and respect. He had a way with people that just made them want to be around him.

I like to think that the way that he acted was the way Christ acted while He was here on this earth, but on a smaller scale. Christ had thousands of people following Him, and that was because He sincerely loved and cared about every one of them. He wasn’t afraid to touch the leper that society had shunned and disowned. He wasn’t afraid to talk with the woman in the heat of the day at the well that was thought of as less than human because she had been married multiple times and was a Samaritan. And He wasn’t afraid to forgive a man who had previously been hurling insults at Him as they both were dying on a cross. It was these Christ-like characteristics that made my dad the amazing man of God that he was. And it is these characteristic that we all will miss the most about my amazingly huge dad, Gary Dow.