Happy Birthday, Dad

Today, my dad would have been 67. It still feels unreal that he’s not here to celebrate it with us. He should be heading out to the bar with the Voss clan, dressed up in an amazing group costume.

Earlier this week, I was telling someone that my dad was born on Halloween. They remarked that it’s often hard to share a birthday with a holiday—and most of the time, I’d agree. But maybe Halloween is different. Or maybe it’s not. Either way, for my dad, sharing his birthday with a holiday was never something he felt shortchanged about. I never heard him complain. Instead, Halloween seemed less like a holiday and more like a way to make his birthday as big as he was.

He embraced Halloween wholeheartedly. From being the magnificent King Triton to a lion on Noah’s Ark or Woody from Toy Story, he was always ready for any costume—and for the fun (and mischief) that ensued. But it wasn’t just about dressing up. Growing up, Halloween meant a night of hitting every haunted house we could find with our cousins and uncles. Did he suggest we sit on haunted train tracks and wait for the car to move on its own? Of course. Did we visit Rhoda’s grave in the woods at night with flashlights? You bet.

And Halloween wasn’t limited to just one day. My dad had scary masks that he’d break out to chase us around the house. There were also the scary books and movies—his favorites. Avid reader that he was, his favorites were horror books—Stephen King’s It, and more.

I embraced his love wholeheartedly—there’s hardly a scary movie I haven’t watched, and that we didn’t talk about. Poltergeist was my first memory of a horror movie, followed by Nightmare on Elm Street. Cujo, Friday the 13th, Firestarter, and Children of the Corn—which I thought I had made a scary theme song for, but I was just really singing Riders on the Storm by the Doors. There are the  sci-fi horrors too—the entire Alien and Predator franchises—and yes, that includes Alien vs. Predator. As an aside, I always thought my dad looked a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Today, Penelope dressed up as Chucky — felt like the perfect tribute to you and your birthday. We love and miss you.