papa, can you hear me?

these are two of my favorite pictures of my dad, even though they were taken a long, long time before i was born. my parents like to say they have two families. they had six kids really close together, and when the youngest was thirteen, traveltwin and i came along. yea. it was quite the shock for them, having twins at 42. but by the time they got to us, they were parents extraordinaire.
some favorite memories with my dad: walking a ways into the woods from our campsite (we went camping a LOT) to find the most fitting branch, and him teaching me how to whittle away the bark and hard places to make a perfectly-fashioned walking stick out of it.
right after having my first baby. it was a really difficult, surreal experience for me. she was caught behind my pelvic bone and i pushed for over 3 hours. in the meantime the epidural hadn't worked correctly and i was in such pain and so tired, i felt like she would never come out. when she finally did, they took her right away and i couldn't see her or hold her for a few minutes. i remember feeling like all i wanted was to look at her and make sure she was alright, and i was jealous that all those other people could hold her before me. when they finally gave her to me, they let me hold her for just a few minutes and then whisked her away for a bath. they took my husband too so they could demonstrate the proper way to bathe a newborn. my mom and twin sister went with them to watch, and i thought i would be all alone. i was still in shock and the epidural had numbed my legs and feet so much that i couldn't move them. there was still no feeling in them for a couple of hours after the delivery. my dad said he would stay with me, and he rubbed my feet and put my socks back on for me. he adjusted my pillows, he told me how proud he was of me. i don't think i could've made it through those first few moments as a mother without him.