It still feels like a dream

It's almost his birthday.  I can still remember his scent, his laugh, his mannerisms.  I remember we would stay up late and listen to Dodger games on this old turntable tuner radio.  Jaime Jarin calling the game in Spanish play by play.  The slight hum of static that the AM frequency would give off  would soothe me to sleep in his comforting arms.  I remember laying on the couch with him watching AAA Lucha Libre on TV.  We would always root for Mil Mascaras, Blue Demon, Octagon, and El Santo.  He taught me how to kill a chicken with my bare hands, pluck it, gut it, and cook it.   Cancer took him from me when I was 15yrs old.  I knew him as a father, but not as a man.  I would think back when we would go to the bank and he would always make the teller girls smile. Back then I was too young to understand, but he was flirting with those teller girls -LOL-.  I always wondered if I was anything like him; I'm thinking I am :^ )  . Recently I was given some black and white photos of him when he was in his mid 20's.  In one photo he is standing next to this beautiful black 57 chevy.  I flip it over and there is his handwriting on it.  The photo was for his sister and in Spanish it read, "here's a picture of me, tell my folks I am doing well and sorry I can't be with you.  But don't I look handsome as usual in this picture?"- WHOA!   I had sent my aunt (his sister) a picture of me and on the back I wrote don't I look handsome as usual in this picture? LOL.....  I miss my dad.  Before I would leave for school I would always walk into my parents room.  I would hug and kiss my mom good by, and then I'd walk over to his side, hug and kiss him.... but on one of those occasions before I walked out of the room, my dad called my name and said,"I love you"...I replied with, "me too".  Me frikken too.  I was too immature to say back to him...  I say it everyday now.  It still feels like a dream.  Every time I visit my mom I walk into their bedroom and I slowly open the door hoping to see him in there.