Where do I begin?

My first blog.  Sort of.  I kept a journal on CaringBridge for about 10 months--the story of my battle with ovarian cancer.  I am now cancer-free and while it was very therapeutic to share my journey with friends and family, it was time to move on from CaringBridge.  Something really great came of it though.  I rediscovered how much I loved to write.  And my followers encouraged me to keep writing.  Some have even said I should write a book.  Baby steps.

So where do I begin?  With a story about the person who gave me the nickname Cricket.  My dad.

It's been a little over a year since my dad passed away.  He had lung cancer from around 50 years of smoking cigarettes.  He had stopped several years earlier, but there was already a large mass in his lungs.  It wasn't discovered until it was too late.  Partly because my dad was tough as nails.  He drank his coffee black and a lot of it.  He rarely wore a winter coat during freezing Minnesota winters.  And he never missed work.  In fact, I only have a couple of memories of him being ill, but even then he didn't take a day off.

I'm not sure why it was a surprise that we didn't know he was sick.  He wasn't a complainer.  But it was quite a shock when he was admitted to the hospital for tests and we were told he was in renal failure.  His body was already shutting down.  The doctor pulled my older brother and I out of the room and told us to "start making plans."  Plans for what, I remember thinking.  He died three days later.

My dad was smart, funny, quick-witted, sharp-tongued, someone who didn’t mince words.  A man who was respected by his friends, co-workers, neighbors.  He was a man who often lent a hand, or offered advice.  He may have acted like a tough guy, but he was a softy deep down.  When I was a little girl, he could get me to smile by singing to me.  While he was in the hospital, during a quiet time with just the two of us, we were interrupted by a nurse who came in to take his vitals.  After getting a low blood pressure reading, she asked him to sit up straight and sing a song while she took a second reading.  The song he sang was, 'Say Say Oh Playmate'--a song I had long since forgotten, but that guaranteed no more tears when I was small.

I was legally named Christine by my mom, but nicknamed Cricket by my dad when I was around a year old.  I never asked how I got the nickname, I just assumed there was a sweet moment when he looked at his cooing baby girl and decided she sounded like a chirping insect.  Or perhaps he saw how enamored I was with Jiminy Cricket, the cartoon host of Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday evenings.  In my early thirties I finally asked him to share his inspiration for the name and all he said was, "I guess 'cause it sounds like Chris."  A typical response from my dad--no sugar-coating.  "Are you sure it wasn't because I made cute little noises like a cricket when I was a baby?"  I asked.  He paused and said, "No, you were a quiet baby.  You never made much noise."

As I lamented about what to call my blog, I settled on 'Cricket Chirps' because, well, while I may not have made much noise as a baby, I have a lot to say now.  In loving memory of my dad.