You know, I've been feeling pretty nostalgic of someone in my life; one gone but never forgotten.

I'm speaking of my father; he's done more for me in my whole life, even today.

Here's me and my dad, New Year's Day, 2007; we had just gotten back from a Boy Scout Camping trip together and stopped to pick up some fireworks on the way back home.

He passed on in a car accident around 2 months later.

Now, I don't grieve for him anymore; I remember him warmly.

He raised me all on his own up until he kicked; I remember how he took me out in his truck some nights, just so we could listen to music, specifically, the same album ("War" by U2) over and over again, without skipping a track.

I remember looking at the dark green lights of the radio in that beat up white Ford; it was the only light. It was bright enough for me to remember looking up at him as he drove, the green light showing part of his face as he gazed down the road.

Oh, it was magical! I'll never have more fond memories than those he and I shared those nights in that truck.

I still have that album we listened to on those nights in my room; it stopped working a couple of weeks after he passed on. It's all scratched up, and the case is gone; it sits in a paper-thin case on top of my bookshelf, forever unmoved until I move on out of the house I stay in now.

It's not just more special now that it's broken, though; it's a beautiful thing.

Shortly after he died, that CD died with him.

Oh god...I'm getting a bit misty eyed just talking about this

That's something you only see in the movies; that's something that just can't be real, but, it is.

I don't speak of him as much as I do what affects me negatively, such as my heart.

Why?

Because I know I'm glad I had 10 years with him; I'd rather have just 10 years of him being my dad than a lifetime of anyone else, and why?

Because no one was like him.

He wasn't meant to be on this earth long. He spoke in pure poetry; you'd cling on to every word he said, not because you felt obliged to, like he was popular; but because you wanted to.

Parents of my friends who knew him all have different stories of him; he was something else.

He never yelled, but he was a parent; I'd cry in the store for some mundane reason, as children often do, and he'd just calmly speak to me, and, as much as I wanted to, I couldn't keep crying. He had that sort of impact with his words; they were so profound, so heavy, yet, so light, so understandable.

This is me now (Pardon the repost; don't have too many recent pictures of myself.) It's almost been 7 years since I last saw him. I've been living with my grandparents ever since, and I'm horribly grateful for them, as old-fashioned and set in their ways as they are; they do the best they can for me. I'm very appreciative of them.

But I still strive to be like my father.

If I could be half the father he was, I'd be damn proud of myself.

He raised me the best he could all on his own for 10 years. He was a great man; the kind that's such a Rarity, that meeting someone like him isn't even a once in a lifetime.

And there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about those nights, listening to U2 in that beat up white truck of his.

I know you can't read this, but thanks, dad; I'll never forget you.

R.I.P. Eddie Nelson Barrett, Jr.

9/28/1969 - 3/26/2007.