I know it's been a while since I've written, just busy with life and work but I've been meaning to write for a while and what I wrote below is straight from my heart, so here it goes.
Every father dreads the day their daughter will bring home "the other man". Having two daughters of my own I knew I'd have to go through it, well that day finally happened about 8 years ago with my oldest daughter Emily who is 24 now. I can still remember when my wife told me "honey Emily is bringing some friends over for dinner" when they showed up immediately I knew what this "friend" was all about, I mean hey I'm a guy too I could see right through him. His name was Cory and soaking wet he was probably about 100 pounds I thought "Hmm I could cross check this kid right into nowhere and we'd be done!" but he was very polite and I can remember the sparkle in his eyes, it was Emily, one of her girl friends (who Cory was "really" after..yea right) Aimee, Sophie and me. As we ate I watched him like a hawk but something about him just seemed right, I know he was there to take my baby away but somehow it felt ok, I can't explain why but maybe it was the way he looked at her? The same way I imagined I looked at Aimee when we first met. He treated her kindly and showed us respect and the sound of his laughter was genuine and immediately contagious, yea you can say I pretty much liked him from the start. After dinner Emily proclaimed "no dad we are just friends" LOL I told her (and I'm a true believer of this) men and women or in this case boys and girls can NOT be friends. This did go over so well as you can imagine but guess what? Not too long after that Aimee told me that Emily had confided in her "mom you know that boy Cory? well we aren't just friends anymore" AAAHAA! See a father always knows! As the years went on Cory became part of our family, we had nick names for him of which my favorite was "Hipster Doofus" because of course I came up with it! He went on family vacations with us and even at times when they had their differences or would "break up" somehow he would always still be around? In fact one time when we took a small trip to Palm Springs (the Ozzie's LOVE Palm Springs) I remember walking up and having my coffee in the living room of our hotel room and seeing him walk by and causally say "good morning Bill"...I went in our room and asked "when did Cory get here?" Of course he just drove out on his own and met us there, of course you say I should have been angry but looking back I never really did get angry with him maybe it's because we were so much alike, growing up alone with no family and being on our own as soon as we hit that 18 mark, neither one of us able to finish college but always able to find good steady work, secretly I was rooting for him as the "underdog" and thinking that with Emily by his side he could do anything he set his mind to. Sure there were ups and downs, fights between him and Emily but somehow they always found each other, loved each other and took care of each other. Cory even lived with us for a few years not having anywhere else to turn and of course Aimee took him in, we took him in like our own, and he was, he was just like the son we never had. He was kind to Sophie and treated her just like a little sister, if anyone in my family would call for help he'd be the first one to show up and would never ask what's in it for him, that's just who Cory was. He would show up to my games and make himself at home in the Locker room with the boys and pass out beers..that's who Cory was everyone he met immediately liked him, like me he had "Kavorka".
There are certain sounds, certain phrases we remember going through life, moments we embed in our minds always there at our beck and call to remember, when Aimee said "I do" the day we got married, the sound my children made when they were born, those are moments forever embedded in my mind that when I want to remember them I can pull them out of a file in my brain, sadly one of those sounds or moments embedded in my mind will be the morning of January 23rd when at roughly 4:30 am I heard the screams, moans and uncontrollable sobbing coming from Emily because sadly that night Cory was in a fatal motorcycle accident and Emily had just found out. It's one of those moments I don't want to remember believe me, but it's something I still hear almost everyday and replay in my mind. I just had lunch with him downtown a few weeks before, he texted me and just "wanted to have lunch" he talked me into having a beer with him, we talked, we laughed, he was so happy, so content with life, looking back was he telling me goodbye? He told me how he loved Emily even though they were going through a rough patch again, he told me about work, about his new bike, how he liked to go fast. I told him "Cory you have to respect that bike it's very powerful" but in true Cory fashion he just laughed and said " I know but I LOVE to go fast". To say our family was complete devastated by this is putting it mildly, even while writing this on the bus on my way home from work tears flowed down my face and I didn't care who saw them or what they thought. The business man sitting besides me saw this and probably thought I was nuts, of course this is LA so he didn't ask if I was ok, he just went on as if he'd seen nothing.
Just like that moment I'll never forget, the sounds of sorrow I'll never be able to erase from my mind I will also never forget Cory, who was like a son to us, I'll never forget those eyes, that contagious laugh and that huge heart he had, even though I'm not really religious, part of me likes to think that Cory is finally back together with his mom, he's looking down on us everyday with those sparkly eyes and that big smile, I hope they God gave him big powerful wings because you know, he loved to go fast. Cory I love you and will miss you greatly you'll always have a special place in my heart and should "that other man" ever show up again, he'll have some pretty dam big shoes to fill.
