My Daddy's Birthday

Tuesday was my Daddy's birthday.  He would have been 96 years old.


All my life I had been told that he was born on his mother's birthday which was August 2nd.   I always remember celebrating this special day with both my dad and my Grandma.  She would come to our home and my mother would fix a special meal and we would always have ice cream and cake, we would sing Happy Birthday to both of them and then they would open presents and cards.


But when my dad past away in 2000 and I was helping my mother with the arrangements, we found his birth certificate and it said he was actually born on August 1, 1915.


Now this was such a surprise  to me, to say the least.  I asked my mom about this, just what does this mean???  I always thought Daddy was born on Nannie's birthday.  She said that was what she too believed... 


Strange things happen over the years..  I suppose because Daddy had been born the day before my Grandmothers birthday, she always felt that he was an early birthday gift to her, and so they always celebrated the two birthday's together and as the years went by, it just came to be, that his birth date was the same as hers.


When I found other documents and looked at them, my father's birthday was always listed as August 2, 1915, the only one that is different is his birth certificate.


Well, maybe that's not really true either... What about their marriage certificate or even my birth certificate.  You see my mother was 4 years older than my dad and that was always a sore spot in their relationship and so they sort of fudge on the years.  Mama became 2 years younger and Daddy became 2 years older.  But now, that's for another story.


Anyway, when it was time to select the tombstone for his grave and to decide on the engravings, I asked mama what date we were going to put on it for daddy's birth?  Her answer was August 2, 1915, that was his birth date, it had always been that way, so that's what we did.....


Now for family history and genealogy, I guess that another problem, but who cares?  To me and our family, daddy was born on his mothers birthday, and that's the day we celebrate and remember our daddy...


Happy Birthday Daddy, I love you very much and I miss you so...


I Love You....