I feel you. Lost my dad 14 years ago on Christmas Eve. That first Christmas was immediate and rough.

Time does dull the ache so when the memories come, it's more comforting than saddening.

Home is where you hang your hat hang your heart. Have good and safe trip there.

Me and the wife are planning to.

Yeah he was a strict disciplinarian when required but he raised me right and bought me a copy of Mein Kampf when I was 13. I organized a group of other people at our church and we would promote right wing ideology and then I started doing it at school and when I was suspended and he had to come pick me up I was terrified but after he spoke to the principal he left with me and in the truck he told me he was proud of me. I'll never forget that.

I then spent the next few days helping around the farm and in spare time reading, listening to Coast to Coast AM at night and shooting my rifles at soda cans during the day.

One day he even let me shoot one of his pistols he kept from his stepfather. A Luger he had inherited that was my bestefars sidearm. My mother cherishes it now and wants to be buried with it.

I wanted it but she deserves it. Plus it has a swastika engraving which would make it illegal in some places and all of jewurope. I wrote a poem about it to leave with her if she approves, it goes in the coffin with her.