Lights on

You were the only morning person of the family. You always managed to wake up at 5 or 6 for golf or tennis or biking and be so alert and cheerful; you really were a natural. I always thought, when I'm older, I'll be a morning person too. 

Um, that's not working out, exactly. 

When we were teenagers, you took gleeful pleasure in waking us up for school. You would walk in my room and relentlessly flip the lights on and off until I got up in extreme exasperation, yelling "DAD STOP IT" all the time. 

Amy was another story altogether. All the alarm clocks and light flipping in the world couldn't really drag her out of bed. You had to go back to her room repeatedly and attempt to get her up, especially when mom got fed up and made you try. 

At one point, Amy had several alarm clocks scattered throughout her room, the idea being that she would be forced to stand up to be able to turn them off. Well, nope, it didn't work. She slept through them. And one of them was a fake rooster cock-a-doodle-doing, one of the loudest and most horrific noises I've heard. At some point, we had to take away that clock, before it took away our sanity. 

It was fitting, I thought, that you passed away early in the morning. You may not know this, but we were called to the hospital at 5am on the dot. I remember thinking, he is making us get up early for him one last time. 

We made it up there pretty quickly, and you were still with us for a couple more hours. You passed away around 7:22 or 7:23, right when high school used to start. Force of habit, maybe. 

Anyway, I tried to channel you this morning and get up at 6 to go the gym, but you probably would not be surprised to hear I went back to sleep instead. I am still hoping your morning cheer and happiness will come to me, "as an adult."

xx