A COWBOY’S HEART

A Legacy Tribute for My Father

Sometimes when I’m driving and pause at a red light, I close my eyes for just a heartbeat. And in that sliver of stillness, I don’t just remember you — I feel you. It’s as if you’re sitting inside me, right in the driver’s seat of my own body, your presence wrapped around my thoughts, your quiet spirit settling into the space behind my eyes. I sense your expressions, your gentle reactions, the way you would take in the world around you. Sometimes, if I glance into the mirror quickly enough, I swear I’ll catch your reflection flickering through mine — not behind me, but within me. Losing you didn’t push you away. It wove you deeper into my soul.

This week marks one year since the day my father left this world — November 19th. A date that now hangs in my heart with a weight I still don’t know how to carry. I have spent the past twelve months trying to understand how time has moved forward when so much of me still lives in the moment I lost him. It doesn’t feel real that an entire year has passed since I last saw his face, heard his voice, or felt the comfort of simply knowing he was here.

I’ve struggled to let the truth of that settle inside me.
I push the thoughts away.
I distract myself.
I bury the heaviness under routine.

Because if I allow myself to fully feel what this date means — to truly absorb that it has been a year without him — I’m afraid of what it will break open in me. The grief sits just beneath the surface, waiting, watching, asking to be felt… and still, I resist. Not because I don’t want to remember him. But because remembering him hurts in a way that feels too big for my chest, too sharp for this world.

I am grateful — endlessly grateful — that he is no longer suffering. That his pain, his exhaustion, his quiet battles are finally behind him. But even that gratitude can’t soften the ache of missing him. Words feel so small compared to the truth of it: I miss him more than language can ever hold. More than sentences can ever explain. More than I will ever be able to express.

Reaching this one-year mark — on the edge of the holidays, during the season he tried so hard to make special — adds another layer of heartbreak I wasn’t prepared for. The lights, the music, the familiar rituals… everything carries his imprint. Everything reminds me of what I had, and what I lost. This time of the year was his way of wrapping the family in warmth, in tradition, in love. Now the season comes with a tenderness that hurts.

That is why I am writing this.
Why I needed to put these memories into words.
Why this tribute matters so profoundly to me.

This isn’t just a reflection.
It’s a reaching.
A remembering.
A way to honor the man who shaped my life in every way a father could.

And so today, on the edge of this painful anniversary, with the holidays approaching and the ache of missing him sharpening in my chest, I write these words for him — and for the part of me that still can’t believe he’s gone.

My father was a man who fixed things…

My father was a man who fixed things. Working with his hands wasn’t merely something he did — it was who he was. As a young boy, he watched his own father repair, build, restore, taking in the rhythm of tools clicking against metal, the patience required to bring something broken back to life, the quiet pride in doing something well. Those early years shaped him. They rooted him in a way nothing else could.

Though he was Sicilian and Polish, and while most people tend to lead with their Italian pride, it was his Polish heritage that he carried most visibly and most proudly — a part of his identity woven quietly into the way he lived and the values he held.

People always said he was born with an old soul. And the more stories I heard about him as a child, the more I understood why. His love for his father wasn’t simple admiration — it was devotion in its purest form. My grandfather worked the 4–12 shift, walking through the door around 1 a.m., exhausted from the night. And my father, even as a young boy, would sleep on the couch just so he wouldn’t miss that moment.

He could have been in bed.
He could have been fast asleep.
But he wasn’t.

He stayed right there, curled up on purpose, fighting sleep just for those few minutes of connection — the sound of the door opening, his father’s footsteps, that brief moment they shared. That wasn’t just love. It was attachment. Loyalty. Devotion etched into a child’s heart so deeply it became the blueprint for the way he loved all of us.

He adored his father with a depth that rarely begins so young. That devotion became the heartbeat of his childhood — and the heartbreak that followed shaped the rest of his life. When my father was just seventeen, he lost his own father far too soon. That loss carved something permanent into him. It changed him in ways he spoke about quietly but carried loudly in everything he did.

In the instant his father was gone, he stepped into roles no boy should ever have to fill. He became the man of the house. He felt responsible — not out of obligation, but out of love — for caring for his mother, my grandmother Connie, whom he adored with all his heart. And he cared for his sister, my Aunt Connie, with the same fierce devotion. The three of them became a small, tightly woven unit — a bond forged in loss, loyalty, and love. They held each other together, roots deep and intertwined, until the day my grandmother was called home.

My father never truly healed from losing his father. You could see it in his eyes whenever he spoke of him — that soft pain, that longing, that “missing” that never dulled, only settled. But in the middle of that grief, he did the most selfless, altruistic thing a person can do: he stepped up. He loved harder. He protected more fiercely. He filled the spaces his father once filled — not perfectly, but with every ounce of his heart.

That experience shaped the man he became. It shaped the father he became. It shaped the quiet strength he carried, the gentleness he showed, the unwavering loyalty inside him. And though I never had the blessing of meeting my grandfather Tony, I have always felt a piece of him through my father — the softness, the kindness, the old-fashioned simplicity, the purity of spirit. The traits people loved most about my father, I’ve been told, were the traits he inherited from his dad.

And maybe that is why their bond ran so deep.
Maybe that is why losing him left such a lifetime-sized ache.
Because he didn’t just lose a parent — he lost the man he was becoming.

His sanctuary was always the garage — the hum of an engine waking beneath familiar hands, the smell of motor oil, the steady clink of tools finding their place. He could lose hours there, repairing cars, tractors, anything mechanical that needed life breathed back into it. His tractors especially were a love all their own. They grounded him. They made sense to him. They were where he felt capable, purposeful, and free.

And it’s in this part of him — the “fixer,” the hands-on creator — that I see the pieces of him living in me most clearly. My father wore many hats in life, both figuratively and literally, and in so many ways I’ve grown into those hats myself. I don’t fix cars the way he did, but I’ve always loved working with my hands, figuring things out, building, creating, understanding the world through touch and tinkering.

And the literal hats…
Especially the cowboy ones.

I wear them the way he did — not as a fashion choice, but as a feeling. When I put one on, I walk a little taller, stand a little prouder. I feel him beside me. I feel his spirit straighten my spine, settle into my steps, remind me that I come from strength, from gentleness, from a man whose heart was steady as the earth he loved. Wearing those hats makes me feel like I’m carrying him with me — not on my head, but in my blood.

And as much as I carry him in the way I walk, the way I work, and the hats I wear… he spent his life carrying his father in the same quiet, steadfast way. Just as I feel him with me, he once felt his own father just as fiercely. And the place where that bond lived strongest — where the echoes of his father’s love never left him — was up the country in the Catskill Mountains.

The land that held both his childhood and mine. Acres of tall, whispering grass and open sky…wasn’t just a place; it was a world. We went many weekends of my childhood. He would load my brother and me into the car, and we’d make the trek to that sacred ground with excitement in our bones.

That land raised me.
It shaped my imagination.
It shaped my understanding of him.

Camping adventures, manhunt games in the dark, mud pies, bonfires, stories, and laughter that echoed through the fields — I lived my childhood in that dirt. So many of our former furry companions are buried there too, laid to rest in the same soil where we grew up playing. Every piece of that place holds a part of our story — his, mine, ours.

That ground holds their stories and ours, stitched together beneath the tall grass and open sky.

It isn’t just land.
It is memory.
It is legacy.

And that mountain — that stretch of heaven he adored — will forever hold his spirit.

That mountain shaped everything about who he was as a father — simple, grounded, content with the quiet joys of life. And that love for simplicity carried into the way he took us on vacations. He didn’t chase big thrills or far-off destinations. He chose places that felt like home, places carved out of nostalgia and warmth.

My dad wasn’t the flashy type. He didn’t need spectacles or excitement. What he loved were the gentle, old-fashioned escapes — the kind of trips that wrapped around you like a warm memory. That’s why so many of our childhood vacations were stitched into the quaint charm of Lake George and the Catskills.

We wandered through Storytown and Carson City — those small Western-themed parks that, though no longer open, live vividly in my memory. Wooden storefronts, dusty paths, toy trains, cowboy reenactments… they felt like walking through pieces of his heart. Old-fashioned. Wholesome. Simple in the best possible way.

Those vacations were ours — humble, sweet, filled with car rides, roadside diners, and the kind of laughter that only comes when life feels slow and safe. He didn’t need elaborate trips. He gave us Lake George and the Catskill. He gave us his time. He gave us the simple magic of childhood.

And he carried that same tenderness with him long after the vacations ended.
And that same kind of gentle magic didn’t stop when we left those little Western streets. He carried it into our everyday lives, finding wonder in the smallest things.

He took my brother and me to train shows, toy shows, Toys “R” Us, and KB Toys. He didn’t need money to create magic — he just needed time. No matter what we did, he made it special.

As a parent now, I understand the depth of that love, the hidden labor behind a child’s happy memories. He poured his heart into us. He never let me forget I was his little girl. Not once.

Even years later, when he walked me down the aisle on my wedding day, I could feel the emotion radiating from him — a lifetime of love and pride shining behind his eyes. And during our father–daughter dance, I saw something in his face I can never fully describe. Love. Pride. Grief. Joy. All layered together.

Moments like that stay with you long after the music stops. They become the anchors I cling to now — the memories I reach for when the world shifts and I’m forced to face the unthinkable.

I don’t think I’ll ever truly be capable of accepting goodbye. Not now. Maybe not ever. It still feels surreal — like a story I wasn’t prepared to live.

My father raised us on simplicity, peace, honesty, and love. He cherished my brother and me with every fiber of his being. He was gentle, easygoing, mild-tempered, trusting to the point of heartbreak. He believed the best in people because he carried that goodness within himself.

Animals always knew who he was. They gravitated toward him as though they recognized something pure in his soul. Every stray cat I dragged home — every animal I insisted needed saving — he welcomed without hesitation. We adopted more shelter animals than I can count.

That tenderness didn’t start with him.
It was something he inherited.

My father had animals his entire life, just like his own father before him — a man who also could never turn a stray away. There was a quiet, old-fashioned kindness in both of them, a softness that lived beneath their strength. And among the countless animals who crossed his path, there were two he was particularly devoted to — two who mirrored the loyalty he gave so freely.

Duke, his horse, was more than an animal. He was a companion, a steady presence, a piece of freedom and peace only a man with a cowboy’s heart could understand.

And then there was Phantom — his Husky–Shepherd mix, a stunning, majestic creature who looked more wolf than dog. Phantom wasn’t just a pet; he was his shadow, his partner, his constant. Like an old cowboy and his sidekick, they were rarely apart. My father always had a four-legged friend in the passenger seat, but Phantom was the one who claimed that spot as if it were sacred.

Many Fridays’ evenings, my father would treat Phantom to a vanilla ice cream from Stewart’s. It wasn’t just a routine — it was their ritual. Even the attendants at the gas station knew Phantom. They would come out to greet him, drawn to his striking presence and the unmistakable bond he shared with my father. Phantom’s loyalty was absolute, the kind of loyalty that comes from recognizing a soul that loves with its whole heart.

Their bond was tight.
Forged.
Unbreakable.

Maybe that’s why he loved animals so deeply — because animals, in their honesty, loved him back in the same unconditional way.

And now, even though he’s gone physically, I see him constantly. I see him in my children’s smiles, their innocence, their joy. Sometimes when they laugh, I hear him laughing with them — layered in memory, spirit, and love. And when Liv does something sweet or unexpected, I hear his voice again, reminding me of what he always said — that she had a spark, something different, something bright. His bond with my children was heartbreakingly brief, but powerful enough to last their lifetime.

We talk about him daily.
We talk to him daily — in prayers, in quiet moments, in laughter.
Keeping him close isn’t a ritual.
It’s a necessity.

Because the longing I feel for him… some days it steals my breath.

There is guilt, too — guilt for the moments I must push thoughts of him away because if I let myself feel the full weight of his absence, I would collapse. I’m a mother now. I have toddlers watching. I don’t always have the space to fall apart.

I think often about that three-day cruise — the only time I couldn’t talk to him while out at sea. It felt endless. We both struggled. We hated the distance. And now here I am, approaching a year without his voice, and it feels like a kind of silence that never stops echoing.

I’ve never written more in my life than I have during this painful year. Writing has become my lifeline — the place where I can bleed safely. But being alone is the hardest part. That’s when the truth creeps in. That’s when the magnitude of his absence hits hardest.

I miss everything — his laugh, his humor, his advice, even the distracted “yup… yup…” moments on the phone when he wasn’t fully listening but still somehow heard me better than anyone else could. He listened with his heart.

And I know I’m not the only one who feels the weight of that absence.

My brother aches for him in a way that’s hard to put into words. He carries his grief quietly — the same way my father carried so much of his own. You can see it in the heaviness behind his eyes, in the way his voice softens when he talks about Dad, in the silence that follows certain memories. He lost not only a father, but the steady presence he built so much of his identity around. Their bond was made of simple moments — shared humor, quiet rides, that easy companionship that doesn’t need words. His grief is deep because their love was deep.

And then there is Shannon — my cousin, but truly more like an older sister to me. Long before I was born, my father played a huge part in raising her, stepping into a role that was so much more than “uncle.” The stories I’ve heard about those years feel like small treasures: how he changed her diapers, fed her, carried her around proudly, and dressed her for the day even if her jacket sometimes ended up on upside down! She loved him with a child’s full, trusting heart, and he poured his love into her just as naturally as he later would into me. Even now, all these years later, that bond runs deep. Shannon loved my father fiercely — and she still carries him with her in a way that is both tender and profound. She, too, feels the ache of losing him, because he helped shape her life long before mine ever began.

His wife, Lori, feels his absence in the quiet corners of their life together — the soft routines, the shared laughter, the simple comfort of knowing he was always there. She often speaks about how she still hears his footsteps, how the house still carries the imprint of his presence in ways that are both comforting and heartbreaking.

Their beloved dogs, Bailey, and Kay, sense the change too. They watch corners of the room, tracking something unseen with gentle, knowing eyes.  Lori says she knows exactly who they see. Animals always recognized the goodness in him — and they still do.

He was there, too, when Kim married beneath the beautiful fall leaves — not in body, but in spirit, and in love. And Doug, who was such a blessing to both of them, still honors him every day. He always went that extra mile, and my father felt that deeply.

And the circle of people who miss him doesn’t end there — his absence ripples through every part of the life he touched.

Dave and Elaine were more than friends — they were constants, woven into the fabric of our family. My dad and Dave talked every single night, those easy conversations about everything and nothing. The kind of talks where the details didn’t matter — just the sound of a familiar voice, the quiet companionship at the end of a long day, the comfort of knowing someone was always there.

He meant so much to so many.
And their lives are softer, quieter, and forever changed without him.

So much of my father’s life was built on routine, loyalty, and love — not just with us, but with the people he held close. And those same qualities showed up most clearly during the holidays — the season he poured his heart into, the season he tried to make gentle and magical for us no matter what was happening in his own life.

Holidays carry their own kind of ache now.
March of the Wooden Soldiers was our Thanksgiving ritual — his ritual. Even thinking about it now makes my throat tighten. The moment the music starts playing in my mind, I’m transported right back into the soft glow of childhood… small, safe, wrapped in the warmth he created year after year. It wasn’t just a movie. It was a feeling — a doorway back into the version of myself who still had him.

Every year, without fail, he would call me to tell me when Rudolph and Frosty would be on PBS. It didn’t matter that I told him I had digital TV and could watch them anytime. That wasn’t the point. The point was love — that gentle reminder, that familiar voice saying, “Don’t miss this, Doot doot.” It was his way of preserving the magic, of making sure tradition didn’t slip through the cracks of adulthood.

My father spent so much time driving — back and forth on Route 9 and Route 6 — doing everything he could to make sure we kept our family traditions on both sides. I didn’t realize then what that meant. I didn’t see the fatigue behind the wheel, the long nights, the quiet sacrifice. I didn’t yet understand what it takes to show up for children over and over again — to pour into them even when you’re running on empty.

My father really would do anything for my brother and me, no matter what it cost him. And maybe that’s why certain movies hit so deeply — because they belonged to those tender seasons, he made magical, those fleeting moments where everything felt whole, simple, and safe.

And then there is Prancer.

A movie I have never been able to watch without feeling something break open inside me — not even when he was still here. There was always something about it that reached directly into that tender place in my heart, the place that belonged entirely to him. Sam Elliott, who plays the father, looked so much like mine it was almost unsettling — the same tired eyes full of love, the same quiet strength, the same aching softness beneath the surface. Watching him on screen felt like watching pieces of my own father flicker to life.

The way that father loved his little girl — worn, worried, and weary, yet endlessly protective — it was him. It was my dad. The voice. The posture. The way he held his love like a responsibility and a privilege all at once. The way he carried exhaustion and devotion together in the same breath. Every part of that character mirrored him in ways I still can’t fully wrap my heart around.

And the little girl…
Full of wonder, innocence, hope — she felt like me.

Her brother — rough around the edges, tender underneath — felt like mine.

And the aunt…

She reminded me so much of my Aunt Connie. And their bond in the movie mirrored the bond my dad and she shared in real life — a bond that was lifelong, extraordinary, and rare. For my father and aunt, it was always just the two of them growing up, two siblings who learned early to rely on each other. They understood each other in a way only children who survive the same storms and share the same love can.

She didn’t just lose her brother.
She lost the keeper of her history.
The person who knew every version of her.

Her grief is deep because their bond was deep — one of the purest parts of both their lives.

And in the middle of all this pain, she has been a blessing to me in a way I can never fully put into words. She and I talk about him constantly because we shared him. We loved him in the same deep way. There is a comfort in that — in having someone who understands both the love and the loss exactly as I do.

She and I spent so many hours talking to him every single day.
She was part of his routine, and I was part of his routine, and together we formed this small circle around him — a circle of care, of laughter, of love. Losing him tore through both of us.

But through that pain, we have one another.

My Aunt Connie is truly like a second mother to me. Her strength, her gentleness, her unwavering love — I hold onto those things the way she holds onto me. Even in her grief, she reaches for me, comforts me, understands me in a way only she can. I am so grateful for her. I always will be.

She is a piece of him.
She is a piece of my childhood.
She is a piece of the love that built our family.

And I thank God for her every single day.

Grief has a way of reaching into the deepest places of our hearts, but so does love. And in that love, I find the only image that brings me peace — imagining his father and mother waiting for him. Calling him home. I carried that image with me through the long hours of his final day. I held it as tightly as I held his hand. And when he took his last breath, that image kept me from falling apart.

He has shown himself to me in so many ways — signs, blessings, moments too perfectly timed to ignore. He hasn’t left. Not really. He’s simply stepped into a place my eyes can’t see yet.

Today, I let myself remember.
To feel.
To cry.
To let the memories come as they needed to.

I remembered pony rides with his arms steadying me.
Clinging to the back of his leg because it was the safest place in the world.
Long drives up the country with old songs drifting through the van as he quietly sang along.
The Barbies he bought just to make me smile.
His laugh.
His humor.
His advice.
His quiet, unwavering love.

He was simple in all the most extraordinary ways.
A true cowboy’s heart — steady, loyal, selfless, and full of love.

I will miss him every day of my life.
I will write to him, speak to him, carry him, for as long as I breathe.

And when the day comes that I close my eyes for the last time,
I know he’ll come for me.
I know he’ll take my hand the same way he steadied me as a child.

Until then…
I’ll live with him inside me.
I’ll love him fiercely.
And I’ll wait — with my whole heart — for the day I see him again.

I love you daddy.. your little girl, your Doot doot